


joyful

by smolskye



Category: LISA (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Comedy, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Gen, I just want them to be happy, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Psychological Trauma, Retelling, Sibling Bonding, Siblings, kind of????? the kids make some jokes i love them, listen i love these kids so much
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:41:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 63,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25895365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolskye/pseuds/smolskye
Summary: A brother and sister bond as they make their way across the desolation.Alternate version of Joyful: Buddy is nicer, Dustin doesn't lie. Much.
Comments: 47
Kudos: 66





	1. the hunted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi friends. recently, in a haze of vodka and quarantine-style-depression, i replayed joyful and cried over buddy and dusty's relationship. (their convo during the third rest sequence??? HELLO 911????) while i loved their story, i wanted an au where things were a bit healthier between them. so consider this a kind of alternate universe retelling of joyful with some specific events changed and more worldbuilding and conversations. it'll be adhering to canon for the most part up to A Certain Point. hope yall enjoy

“Sorry about that,” the blond man was saying. He yanked on the rope he had tied around what had become of Brad to keep it from attacking Buddy. The Brad-creature was letting out quiet, awful, inhuman sobs that sent chills down her spine. Buddy was frozen, recovering. “I thought I had him tied up better.” 

He glanced at the pills scattered on the floor around her. They had fallen out of her pockets earlier. “You’re taking Joy now, are you? You’re a bit young for that, but like father, like daughter, I suppose.”

Buddy opened her mouth but couldn’t say anything. The comparison hurt.

“Well, no matter. I’m taking Brad,” the man said. He struggled with the rope for another few seconds before adding, “You can go.”

“You don’t want to hurt me again?” Buddy asked hoarsely.

“I never wanted to hurt you. This was never about you,” said the man, not looking at her. “I’m sorry you got dragged into it.”

“But -”

“I’ll tell my men to leave you alone.” He gestured at her backpack. “I gave you some food and water.”

Buddy kept her eye on him as she walked over to retrieve it off the ground. “Why are you helping me?” she asked.

“Nobody else will,” he said. “Welcome to hell, sunshine.” With that, he dragged the Brad-creature away and left Buddy on her own.

She waited, breathing slowly. Eventually, she pocketed the pills and put her backpack on, then slung her sword, in its sheath, over her shoulder. Once she felt ready, she left the shack.

The sun was rising. All was eerily quiet in the aftermath of the battle, and the air stank of blood and sweat and decay. To her right lay the dead; to the left lay the rest of the world.

Buddy turned left and turned her back on all she had ever known.

Had she known what waited only minutes of travel ahead of her, she might have swallowed some of her pride and asked the stranger to stick around.

“Get the fuck away from me,” she snarled, unsheathing her sword and holding it out in front of her as the pack of men leered at her.

She had run into a lot of vile men in the last week or so, but this leader guy, Bolo Something, was easily one of the worst. His sour, sallow body stood out against the landscape and his beady eyes glittered at her from a distance. “Feisty, aren’t you? Let’s get ‘er, boys. But remember, I go first.”

Buddy backed up and prepared to start swinging when there was a shout of “Stop!” from behind her. Expecting to now have to deal with enemies from both sides, she was shocked to see a familiar face. Or, rather, a familiar mask.

“Leave h-her alone,” Rando said. He had been half dead the last time she saw him, so she wasn’t surprised to hear him add, “P-p-please,” clearly not prepared for another fight.

“Oh, it’s the mighty Rando!” Bolo mocked. “Begging us to _stop?_ What a joke! How far have you fallen, old boy? You look like you’ve been through quite the ringer!”

“H-he’s right,” Rando said quietly, only loud enough for Buddy to hear. “I c-can’t do this.” As he spoke, Buddy heard something else - some kind of music playing.

“So why don’t you back off,” Bolo sneered, swaggering forward, “and wait your turn?”

Rando saw it before anybody else did, and grabbed Buddy’s hand so tight it hurt. A second later, some horrific monster came flying out of nowhere and crushed one of Bolo’s men, tearing him to shreds, blood splattering the ground. Before anyone could register the death, the monster had leaped down onto another man and ripped him in half.

“Run,” Rando said, and he didn’t have to tell her twice. She stuck close to him as they sprinted for a cavern, grimacing at the gruesome noises and shouts behind her. “Th-there’s another entrance,” he said. She nodded and followed him as they ran down the cave’s twists and turns and left the bloody scene far behind them.

She wasn’t sure how much time passed before they finally stopped in front of the exit. “We’ll b-be safe here,” he said.

“What the hell was that thing?” Buddy asked, looking at him warily.

“That was a m-mutant. They’re...around.”

She scanned him up and down. He had bandages wrapped around his arms and some of his healing wounds had torn while they ran, leaving him bleeding from various cuts. He was out of breath and definitely in pain, but was doing his best to hide it.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He nodded firmly.

She hesitated before asking, “Did Brad do all this to you?”

“Don’t worry,” he said with conviction. “I’m...I’m fine.”

She nodded, not believing him, and peered outside. All was quiet besides the sound of the wind through the hills.

“Don’t be m-mad at him,” Rando said. “He just wanted to p-protect -”

“Please,” said Buddy distastefully, anger flaring up. “He nearly _killed_ you, don’t feel the need to _defend_ him. I’ve heard that enough. I don’t want to fucking hear it anymore.”

He didn’t reply. She spotted a flat-ish rock and sat down heavily, opening her backpack. The blond man had given her a few packs of jerky and some clean water. She uncapped one of the bottles of water and drank some, but was careful to conserve it. It wasn’t exactly easy to find.

“Sticky told me about you,” she said. “Said he met you a while back.”

“St-Sticky,” Rando echoed. “We m-met, yes. He didn’t h-hurt you, did he? I put a lot of t-tr-trust in him.”

“No, he never hurt me, he was like family. I always called him my uncle growing up. Never touched me or anything. I think...Brad...thought he did? But he didn’t.”

“G-good.” Rando got to his feet. “W-we should go. I’m...I’m still weak. I need h-help from my f-friends.”

“Alright, best of luck, then,” said Buddy, tossing the water bottle into her bag and preparing to leave.

“Buddy, wait.”

She stopped.

He took a deep breath. “I know w-we just met a w-week ago, b-but... I want peace. I want to move f-forward. I’m sick of seeing bl-blood, I’m sick of all this v-violence…”

She waited.

“I w-want to fix the world,” he said, “b-but only you can do that. You understand that w-without women, h-humans will die out?”

“I know.” She just didn’t like thinking about it too much.

“Th-then w-we should work together. I don’t want to hurt you. I n...need you to trust me.”

She paused in the doorway, looking at him, thinking. The trauma, the paranoia told her _no, trust no one. You never know who’s out to get you. His men kidnapped you._ Which was all true. Ultimately he was just another man with strength and power who wanted her - but at least he didn’t want her for _that._

Sticky had said he was different from other warlords. That he really did try to keep the peace, even when it seemed impossible. His men didn’t always follow his instructions, but he was as respected as he was for a reason.

“I don’t know if I can do that,” she said finally.

“I understand,” he said, though he seemed downcast.

“But I’ll help you,” she added. “I’ll go with you to your friends.”

He seemed to perk up at that. “O-okay.”

“Just stay behind me,” Buddy said, shouldering her pack. “You’re hurt, I’m not. Take it easy.” He was still a threat, but a less formidable one, and more than that, he would be an asset if they did run into any strangers.

“L-let me give you something,” Rando said. He took off his own pack and handed her a red mask. “It m-might help us out of some s-s-scrapes.”

“If you say so,” she said, despite her dislike of masks. She attached it to her face and adjusted the straps. “Okay,” she said, her voice muffled. “Let’s go.”

Their little journey began in dead silence. Buddy listened to every footfall, hoping not to hear any irregularity that would suggest betrayal. She looked around the hills and plains, her eyes moving from stone to stone, from one potential hiding place to the next.

They had only been walking for a minute before she felt an odd pain in her chest and throat. It flared and burned like a fire scorching her insides and she stumbled to a stop, clutching her neck.

“W-what is it?” Rando asked, and hurried to her side. “Wh-what’s wrong?”

“I don’t - something hurts, my chest - it _hurts,_ what the - what the fuck is happening?!” Buddy demanded, the sparks of panic lighting within her as she scrabbled at her own body, and tore off the mask as she tried to breathe. “What the fuck is happening to me?! It - it hurts!”

“I d-don’t know,” Rando said, backing away. “Are you t-tired? Injured?”

“No! I...I feel...I need...I’m…” She trailed off, trying to think over the pain, her arms and legs now shaking. She sat down with a thump and scooted back against a rock, clutching her arms. “I need...something...”

_Am I hungry? No. Thirsty? I just drank. Tired? I just slept. Scared? No._

“It w-won’t hurt to drink s-some water,” Rando suggested.

She nodded and reached for her pack, then pulled a water bottle out and took a swig. It helped ease some of the burning, searing pain in her throat, but didn’t fix it. She set it down, still panting.

He set a hand on her forehead and she jerked away. “What the hell?” she snapped.

“S-sorry. I just w-wanted to see if you were f-f-feverish,” Rando explained.

“Oh. Sorry,” she grunted.

“It’s okay.” This time, she let him touch her forehead. “N-no fever,” he said, backing away. “If I had some p-pain pills…”

 _Pills._ It hit her _._ She reached into the pocket of her sweatpants and pulled out a single blue pill that she quickly swallowed with another gulp of water. Rando watched this in silence.

It took another few seconds for the pain and what she now realized was craving to ease up. Once the shaking in her arms and legs had stopped, she got back to her feet and put the mask back on. “I’m okay now,” she said. “Let’s keep moving.”

Not long later, they were unlucky enough to encounter a group of men in their path who insisted on a fight. Buddy worried that she would have to cover for Rando, but even in his weakened state the men were no match for him, especially considering they had just killed a mutant that lay dead a few feet away. They were no match for her, either, and she countered every punch or swipe with a slash of her saber. Blood spattered the ground as the men fell one by one until just one cowered before her and her blade. It only took a single strike to kill him.

The hum of victory that Buddy felt in her chest was a newer reaction to killing. She wiped her blade off on the body and she felt _better._ The first time she killed, she had thrown up not long afterwards, so horrified with what she had done, which received little sympathy from Brad. _It’ll get easier,_ he had told her, his only words of comfort.

He was right. So much of what he had told her was right.

Behind her, rustling told her that Rando was looting for supplies. She, too, rifled through the pockets of the man she had just killed.

“You done?” she asked after a minute, turning around. He nodded. “Find anything good?”

“S-some jerky and m-mags,” he said, but Buddy saw him retrieve some bottles of alcohol as well. “H-how’d you learn to fight like that?” He almost seemed disappointed.

“Brad taught me to defend myself,” she replied, standing a little straighter.

Rando muttered something under his breath and shook his head. “We’re almost th-there,” he said. “J-just a little further.”

Buddy poked the dead mutant with her sword. “This thing better not wake up n’ get us.” Thankfully, it didn’t, though Buddy was taken off guard by the sight of another dead mutant and picked up the pace.

They rounded a corner and came upon a great stone slab propped up against a hill. It was old and cracked, with moss and various plants growing on and around it, much of it discolored from water, but the words scrawled across it were easy to read.

Buddy stopped in front of it. “What is this?” she asked.

“This is the border between eastern and western Olathe,” Rando replied. “These people run Olathe in order from top to b-b-bottom. They rule different territories.”

“Okay, then where are you? I don’t see your name.”

“Me and my army are left a-a-alone.”

“Wow, good deal,” Buddy commented. 

“...until r-recently,” he finished. “I guess times have changed...now that you’re here.”

There was no resentment in his voice, but she still felt a pang of guilt that she quickly shook off. _Not my fault all the men went crazy,_ she told herself.

She scanned the names. None that she recognized, though she might’ve heard one or two mentioned by random men during her captivity, or maybe by her uncles. One had some letters written in white paint over the first name, and her mouth twitched. _Heh, farty._ Three were crossed off.

Deciding to confirm her suspicions, she asked, “Are the crossed off ones dead?”

“I th-think so,” said Rando.

“What happens to their land, or whatever?”

“It g-goes to other w-warlords, or b-belongs to no one.”

“Hm.” As she beheld the list, she felt something in her chest, not withdrawal this time. No, this was something much better, much stronger. It went from her heart to her brain to the tips of her fingers. It reignited her fire that had gone out.

“B-Buddy, we should keep moving,” Rando pressed. He was limping and blood was starting to stain some of his bandages.

She shook herself out of it. “Right. Yeah. How much further?”

“It’s j-just up ahead.”

And it was. The entrance was marked with a red skull, and the area was blocked off with barbed wire. At the top of the hill were two structures, and Buddy couldn’t tell if they were occupied from their distance. The whole area seemed intimidating.

“This belongs to you? Does this lead up there?” Buddy asked, pointing.

“Y-yes. C-come on inside.”

As Rando approached the entrance, she hung back. “Wait. How are your guys gonna react to me?”

He glanced back at her. “They w-will leave you alone.”

“Are you sure?”

“They’ll do as I say, and I...s-say to leave you alone,” he said. He was swaying on the spot, so Buddy chose not to argue any further, and followed him inside.

She heard footsteps, then the click of a lighter, and the tunnel was illuminated with a torch. Four men stood in front of them.

“Wh - Rando!” exclaimed one of them. “You’re - holy shit! What the hell happened? And - who’s -”

“It’s...her,” Rando said. “D-don’t...t…” Before he could even finish the sentence, he collapsed.

“He needs help,” said the same man. He pointed. “You, get the others, we gotta get him up there.” One of the men ran off down the tunnel. He gestured at the remaining two men. “You, get her.”

Before either man could approach her, Buddy withdrew her sword and held it in front of her, snarling, “Back the fuck off! Rando says not to touch me! He told me you’d leave me alone!”

“I take my orders from him, not you,” said one of them. “You’re coming with us.” 

She saw the guns and blades at their waists and, though it hurt to admit, knew it was too risky to try to fight, especially in an enclosed space. “Fine,” she said through gritted teeth. “But don’t fucking touch me or I’ll gut you.”

“Okay, calm down, just come on,” said the other. “You’ll be safe. We’ve got food and water.”

She reluctantly sheathed her sword. “Hurry up, then. But...take care of Rando first,” she added. “He was really hurt.”

“I can tell,” said the man who had issued orders. He was kneeling beside their boss. “He’s alive, but we need to dress these wounds before they get infected.”

Buddy cast one look back outside before she allowed herself to be escorted into the stronghold. She could be patient. For now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 「hell is empty, and all the devils are here.」


	2. the emancipated

Darkness. Pain. Voices, every now and then. The sting of alcohol. The taste of water. More darkness.

Feverish and ill, Dustin Armstrong drifted in and out of consciousness. His dreams were blood-red and filled with the sound of screaming metal. Old, old scars were torn apart over and over and over. He saw Buddy, her eyes and mouth weeping blood and tears. He saw Bernie, face twisted in rage. His visions of Brad flickered from young to old, back and forth, but his disappointed expression remained the same. He saw Clint in his last moments before Brad killed him. He felt everything, and nothing.

Voices. His chosen name. They sounded serious. Urgent, angry or scared. He couldn’t speak or even raise a limb.

Useless and limp, his purgatory continued.

Buddy woke to the  _ clang  _ of the metal door. The man who entered with breakfast was the same one who had brought her dinner the night before. “Rise and shine,” he said.

“Fuck off,” she snarled. Withdrawal had exacerbated every frustration and dysfunction. Her neck felt like someone had burnt it from the inside. Her chest felt like it had been smashed with a stone. She felt weak enough to collapse if she wasn’t tied up.

“Being a bitch isn’t gonna get you anywhere,” he said. “Can I untie you so you can eat, or are you gonna try to kill me too?”

On the second day, she had attacked one of the men after he taunted her, and they decided tying her up was the best option. Only a day later, the same man had touched her while he thought she was asleep. She had screamed to wake up the others before he could truly molest her, and he was dragged away. Nobody said anything, but she was woken by a gunshot the next morning, and she hadn’t seen her would-be rapist since.

They had to feed her directly, which was humiliating and annoying for everyone involved, but they hadn’t wanted to risk her lashing out again. That was before withdrawal had truly exhausted her. She wasn’t strong enough to fight even if she could reach her sword that rested against the opposite wall.

“You’re not trying to rape me, so, no,” she muttered.  _ If I could get some Joy, maybe.  _ But she didn’t want the men to take the pills away from her if they found out about them.

“Good.” He approached her to untie her hands and arms. Once they were free, he gave her some dried rations. They weren’t delicious, but they were as nutritional as one could get, and she ate ravenously.

“Water,” she grunted as soon as she was done.

“Sure.” The man gave her a bottle of water, and she uncapped it.

As she drank, she felt the Joy pills in her pocket and her heart raced.  _ There’s gotta be a way I can take one,  _ she thought, withdrawal only lessening with that possibility. She wracked her brain, racing through potential tricks, and settled on an easy one.

“What’s that?” she asked suddenly.

“What’s what?”

“I heard something outside,” she said. “Can you go check?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “What’d you hear?”

“Falling rocks.”

“Fine, I’ll check, but I’m taking your sword,” he said, and grabbed it on his way out of the building.

Knowing she had seconds at best, Buddy grabbed a pill and popped it in her mouth, then took another few gulps of water. The man returned as she was wiping her mouth, and she put the cap back on the bottle.

“I didn’t see anything, but I’ll tell our guard to keep an eye out,” he said, and put her sword back by the door. “Put your arms back, gotta tie you up again.”

She said nothing as the withdrawal faded and the adrenaline of Joy spread through her veins again. Her heart pounded, her blood pumped, her hands itched to fight with strength her sober self didn’t have. When the man was close enough, she grabbed his arm and twisted it sharply, yanking him towards her. Before he could react, she reached for his throat and pressed her thumbs against the veins under his chin, squeezing as hard as she could, feeling the rage build and build inside of her. His hands scrabbled at her arms, but in that moment, he was weaker than her and his efforts were futile. When she was sure she had bought herself some time, she released him, and he collapsed against the floor, wheezing. She reached behind her and tugged at the knots, and after a few seconds of struggle, the ropes fell to the floor and she jumped to her feet.

The man was struggling to his hands and knees, but she planted her foot on his back and pushed him back down to the ground, kicked him hard in the side, then ran for her sword. Before he could try to get up again, she stabbed him through the back, aiming for the heart. He vomited blood and went limp, groaning in pain. Hopefully, the wound was fatal.

She heard footsteps from outside and pressed herself against the wall beside the door, her heartbeat hammering in her head.  _ Come on...hurry up… _

“Dude, you’re taking fore - oh, fuck!” A man exclaimed as he stepped inside the room. “Where -?”

He turned just as Buddy lunged forward, and her blade sliced across his face. He stumbled backwards, shouting, and tripped over the other man. After falling onto his back, it was easy for Buddy to leap over and kill him with a direct stab to the heart.

The sound of her frantic breathing and the stench of blood filled the room. She heard the wheeze of the first man drawing his last breaths, the gurgling of blood in the mouth of the second man, then silence from both.

“What the fuck?” another man shouted from outside. “Who did that? Fuck, is she loose?”

Buddy didn’t have enough time to hide this time, and she was almost caught off guard when he entered the room. He inhaled in shock and she darted forward, her sword ready. “Shit! You’re crazy!” he yelled, stepping backwards, but he didn’t run fast enough, and her strike sliced his arm open. He shouted in pain, but sprinted away without a fight. She hesitated a moment as part of her mind told her to  _ run, run, kill, kill,  _ but logic overrode the urges - it wasn’t worth it.

Instead, she raised her head and rolled her shoulders, then kicked at the ground, relishing in her newfound freedom. She felt the Joy in her body, felt her bones hum with power, and she was satisfied.

Then, her head snapped to the right - another sound from outside. Not footsteps. A moment later, Rando, minus his mask, dragged himself into the room on his hands and knees, still clearly suffering from his wounds.

“It’s you,” she said, her voice much calmer than her mind.

“They’re...dead…” he managed to say. His eyes were hard to see among the scarred, puffy flesh of his face, but they were wide in shock.

“Of course they are,” Buddy said, looking down and kicking at the limp arm of one dead body. It was hard to look at Rando’s face. “Well, one of ‘em got away.”

“What d-did they do to you? Did they hurt you?”

“They tied me up and locked me in here, n’ one of them tried to do stuff to me, but they killed him,” she said. “Men always want to lock me up somewhere.” She curled her lip. “I hate it, and I won’t let it happen again. Were these really your friends? I thought you told them -”

“I never got the chance,” Rando said. “I was p-passed out the whole t-time...I c-can’t believe they...I’m s-s-sorry.” His voice was shaking even more than usual.

She snorted. “Some friends. Maybe pick better ones next time who don’t try to fucking rape me, and I won’t kill them.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again, sounding legitimately very upset. “If I had b-been awake, I w-wouldn’t’ve l-let this happen. I’m so s-sorry, Buddy. I’m sorry.”

She hesitated, then shrugged. “Well, I guess it wasn’t really your fault. It was theirs. I’ll forgive you this time.”

“Th-thank you.”

“You still look like shit,” she commented. “You should rest up. Is anybody left, or are they all dead ‘cept for the guy who ran off?”

“The m-medic is out. He can help when he gets back.”

“‘Kay. Stay awake long enough to tell him to leave me the hell alone, alright? I’ll get you some water.”

It wasn’t long before the medic returned. After a hasty explanation from Rando and a warning from Buddy, he retrieved the medical supplies and some rations while she watched from a corner, her sword in her hand, just in case. At least for now, the struggle was over.

Two days passed. Buddy was restless, and Dustin knew he was running out of time to keep her in the last safe place he knew of. His health aside, he had to leave if he wanted to stay with her. He had recovered for the most part, but he was still weaker than he had been before the fight with Brad, and he wasn’t sure if he would ever be as strong again. But he couldn’t give up. Not now, not ever. He had to protect his sister.

_ Sister.  _ Back when he was an orphan living with five other kids in a foster home, there were no children he considered his siblings. When Brad had adopted him, he was often alone or unattended in a very utilitarian apartment, and had few to no friends at school. Later in life, he had been able to make friends, but none had been very close. And since the Flash, people seemed determined to fit into categories of “gang members” and “enemies”, with no space in between.

But now, he had a sister.

Years of battling depression had brought him to the breaking point when he learned that his former father was the guardian of the last girl in Olathe, and the old yearning for closeness, for a family _ ,  _ had overrode any logic or rationality. All potential dangers and risks were irrelevant. He needed to find her. He needed to keep her away from the men who would hurt her. He needed to keep her safe.

Even as Brad slaughtered his army and nearly killed him, he couldn’t help the respect, the kinship he felt towards him, because they both  _ cared _ . They both just wanted to protect her from the world. Over a decade later, they still weren’t so different, just two men full of pain and love. And he still wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“You should be fine,” said Jeremy, the medic, who was giving Dustin a final scan. “Just try to take it easy. Don’t do anything too crazy.”

“It’s u-up to her,” Dustin said.

“You trust her?”

“Yes.”

“She killed Ben and Sam. More than that, didn’t she kill some guys when they kidnapped her?”

“Yes…”

“So how d’you know she won’t kill you as soon as you look at her the wrong way? Kid’s a powder keg, boss. Be careful,” Jeremy said, glancing warily at the door as if he was expecting her to burst in.

“She w-won’t,” said Dustin, hoping he was right. 

Jeremy sighed and tossed some gauze and ointment into a wrap that he handed to Dustin. “I guess I can’t blame her. But you can’t really blame the guys, either, y’know.”

Dustin glared at him though the eyeholes of his mask. “Sh-she’s a  _ child _ . She’s not a woman, not yet. What k-kind of sick p-person tries to touch a child?”

Jeremy shifted, uncomfortable. “Well,  _ I  _ wouldn’t, but -”

The metal door opened loudly and Buddy stood in the doorway, holding her bloody sword and looking irritated. “Some guys tried to cross the barrier, so I took care of ‘em. You’re welcome.”

“You’re sure they weren’t ours?” Jeremy asked, taking a few steps away from her.

She shrugged. “Didn’t say they were. Didn’t have the masks. Rando, are you fixed up? I’m sick of waiting.”

Dustin glanced at Jeremy, who nodded, and he said, “Y-yes, I’m r-ready to go.”

“Good. I’ll wait out here.” Buddy turned and left.

Dustin faced Jeremy. “T-take c-care of yourself. Th-there’s more of our m-men wandering around, I’m s-sure. You should head b-back west. This was our last stronghold.”

“If you run into any, send them my way,” Jeremy said. “Be careful, and come back to our land whenever she’s done what she wants to do.”

“I will. Th-thank you.” With that, Dustin left and jogged over to Buddy, testing the strength of his limbs. To his relief, the brief run was painless.

“Finally,” she said. She had been wiping off her blade on the side of the other structure to get the blood off, leaving great red stains on the metal. “C’mon.”

“Buddy,” Dustin said, walking next to her as she began to maneuver down the rocky hill, “w-what are we doing?”

She glanced at him. Her visible eye was cold, its blue highlight small but bright. It was a mark of Joy that Dustin had seen many times. “I’m done playing games,” she said. “I’m done letting this world walk all over me.”

She stopped for a moment to brush some hair out of her face, and tilted her head up. “I know who I am now. I am strong. I’m not afraid. And I’m one of a kind.” These weren’t words someone had told her; she spoke with ultimate conviction, with the confidence of fact. They were true.

She stared into space for a few moments, letting the wind ruffle her shawl, then continued walking. “That list. I want my name at the top.”

“Wh-what?”

“I want to rule Olathe.” She wet her lips. There was more emotion in her voice than anything she had said in the last few days, and her visible eye burned with fervor. “There’ll be no names but mine. I’ll kill them all. I won’t live in fear anymore.  _ They  _ will fear  _ me.”  _

“But...look at you,” Dustin said, and they both came to a stop at the foot of the hill. He gestured at her. “Your f-face...your b-body…” He couldn’t say any more than that.

She tilted her head. “What about ‘em?”

“If you fight all those m-men, you might get h-hurt even worse. You might get killed, and w-we need you, Buddy,” Dustin said urgently. “You c-can’t die.” She _couldn’t._ But part of him already knew he couldn’t talk her out of it.

“I won’t die,” she said. “I won’t suffer. This isn’t pain.” She touched the bandages on her face. “I feel nothing. You know what hurts?” she asked bitterly. “Everyone I ever bothered to care about is  _ dead.  _ All the people I’ve trusted have abandoned me or hurt me. I’ve lost everything. This is all I have left. You don’t know what that’s like.”

“I d-do, actually,” Dustin said. He hurt for her, his old hyper-empathetic tendencies awakening. He had tried to shut them down for ages: empathy and sympathy had been weaknesses for so long.

She frowned at him. “What?”

“W-well...I d-don’t have a family anymore either. Haven’t f-for a long time.” Now wasn’t the right moment to tell her the truth. “M-my army, my friends...I think m-most of them are dead,” he said. “I’m n-not hunted like you are...but I d-don’t have anyone or anything either.”

Her stiffened shoulders relaxed a bit. “Oh. Guess I hadn’t thought of that. Um.” She shifted. “M’ sorry,” she muttered. She shoved her hands in the pockets of her sweatpants. “Well, if you’re willing to work with me, we’ll have each other, right?” she asked, looking up.

For a moment, Dustin saw past her icy front and saw a scared, traumatized teenage girl looking back at him. Alone, adrift, and addicted. The older-brother-protective-instinct that roared inside of him told him that Buddy needed him just as much as he needed her, regardless of her intentions.

“Y-yes,” he said. “I’ll w-work with you.”

One side of her mouth turned up in the first smile he’d seen on her face, and her eyebrows furrowed. “Great. Let’s get started, then.” She clapped her hands and turned around. “Who’s up ahead? He’s gonna wish he was never born when I’m through with him.”

Doubt crawled back into Dustin’s heart. “W-well, there’s a f-few...L-Lardy Hernandez for one, but you really shouldn’t h -”

“Rando,” Buddy interrupted, facing him again. “This is the only way that I’ll be safe. If I don’t kill them all, they’ll hunt me until they catch me. You can join me, or you can sit back and watch me...but nothing you say will stop me. Decide now.”

Her threatening words fell on silence. There was only one answer, of course. She was the last girl, his little sister, emotionally turbulent, and constantly at risk. There was no way he could leave her now. “I’m w-with you, Buddy,” he said.

“Okay, then, don’t try to tell me what to do.”

“C-can I make suggestions?”

She huffed. “Fine, you can make  _ gentle suggestions,”  _ she snarked, but she flashed him a grin. “But watch yourself!”

Knowing he was about to break his vow of peacekeeping, Dustin managed a laugh. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 「i imagined a story where i didn't have to be the damsel.」


	3. the search

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading xoxo tbh i was shooketh that anyone read this so i appreciate all of you who do. also if you have spotify check out my [lisa playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2t0F8hfJzRUINcj3Z9LWXN?si=fR30pkQ2RZeAHfA51DcFNg) i have spent way too long cultivating it so i wanna know your thoughts

“Right, so, how did those three die?” Buddy asked, pointing with her sword at the three crossed-off names on the list.

“D-don’t know,” Rando said.

“Hmph. Guess I can’t exactly find out. Well, who cares, they’re out of the way, at least. Do you know where to find that guy?” She pointed towards the lowest untarnished name - Vega Van Dam. She curled her lip and bared her teeth at the words. Every name on the list was a threat. Every name on the list would die at her hand.

“Y-yes,” he said after a moment’s pause. “T-territories are marked by their leader’s signs. Are - are you s-sure you w-want to kill him?”

“I told you. It’s the only way I know I can be safe,” she said. “Are you with me or not? I’m sick of asking.”

Another pause. “I’m w-with you,” he said.

“Alright, then, lead the way.”

“T-there’s g-going to be more m-men on the way,” Rando said, “s-so be careful. W-we’ll have to d-defend ourselves.”

She nodded. “You talk more with me than you did with your own men?” she half commented, half asked. “Seems like it’s tough for you.” She walked next to him as they headed east, her legs moving twice as often to keep up with him.

“It can be. I p-passed on orders. I only s-spoke to a f-few of them.”

“And they’re all dead now?”

“A lu-lot of them.”

She scratched her neck. “Sorry.”

“S’ not your f-fault,” Rando said, even though it was, sort of. But that didn’t matter to her. What mattered was how she sympathized with his loss, with how abruptly his life had shifted. Their timelines had overlapped, then collided.

“Wasn’t fun to watch,” Buddy said. “D’you think there’re shops up ahead?”

“M-maybe. I have magazines, w-we can b-buy some more food.” Rando reached into his pocket and pulled out the currency, and picked up the pace, walking ahead of her.

“You’re not gonna let me see them either?” she complained, not wanting to jog to keep up with him.

“Y-you’re not old enough.” He wasn’t dwelling on them, just counting them. “I have t-twenty p-pages.”

“Is that enough?”

“We’ll f-find more,” he said, and put them back in his pocket.

“Why aren’t I old enough?” Buddy pressed. “What’s on ‘em? Or in ‘em?”

“It’s not ap-p-propriate for children.”

“I’m not a child!”

“You’re young.”

“Do they have women on them? Is that it? What’s the big deal with me seeing that? I’d  _ like  _ to see what women look like,” Buddy said.

“N-not these women,” said Rando delicately.

“Why not?”

“It’s c-complicated. Women all looked different, j-just like men do,” he said, swiftly changing the subject.

“Oh. I guess that makes sense. I wonder what my mother looked like.  _ Or  _ my real dad,” she mused.

“Th- _ they _ probably looked like you,” said Rando. “Put on your m-mask, there’s a c-crossroads ahead.”

“Oh, okay.” Buddy took out the red skull mask and fastened it to her face. “Is this really gonna stop guys from attacking us on sight?”

“It sh-should. I’m known for b-being p-peaceful…” Rando trailed off, then looked away from her. “Also, you should l-lower your voice so you sound like a man, if you need to speak.”

“Okay.” She cleared her throat, then, in her best imitation of a man’s voice, said, “Like this?”

Rando laughed, like a real, actual laugh, and she wasn’t sure if she should be pleased or insulted. “Well, make a suggestion, then!” she retorted.

“You d-don’t need to exaggerate,” he said, “just p-pitch your voice down. Like this,” he said, lowering his voice without adding any personality to it the way she had.

“Like this,” she echoed, making him laugh again. “I’m a big strong man!” she huffed, her voice now in a deep mocking growl, holding her arms out to her sides and goose-stepping forward. “Look’it me n’ my muscles n’ guns!” She stood up straight. “Can I get a gun? Do  _ you  _ have a gun?” she asked in her normal voice, abruptly switching topics.

“M-maybe, and no,” Rando said. “D-did  _ you  _ have one?”

“Brad had a shotgun, that’s how he taught me to shoot,” said Buddy, walking normally again. “Guess he left it at the house or somethin’. Or maybe one of my uncles took it. Dunno. We had a pistol, too. That was way easier to use. Why didn’t you need one?”

“I n-never traveled alone. Usually one of the other m-men had a g-gun just in case we needed one.”

“Can you shoot one? If not, I can teach you,” she offered, puffing her chest out. “I’m pretty good at it. Brad had me shoot a guy from a distance and I got him right in the forehead.”

“R-really?” Rando asked, dismayed. “Someone innocent?”

All of her bravado fell away. “Well...I guess. I had to learn, right?” she said defensively.

“Y-yes, but…” Rando shook his head. “The p-past is the past, I guess.”

Feeling that weird guilt again, Buddy didn’t continue the conversation, but kept up with her companion and didn’t complain about his significantly larger stride. 

The shop-slash-bar Rando spoke of was in a small camp. They heard voices in the huts, low and quiet. One man left his hut, saying, “Gonna go to the bar,” to whoever else was inside, and he stopped short at the sight of them. As he stood, silent, Buddy tensed.

“J-just keep moving,” said Rando quietly. “Stay ahead of me.”

Buddy nodded, tried to appear confident and at ease, and kept walking. There was a haphazard sign that indicated the bar, and the pair headed inside.

The bartender looked up as they entered. “You’re Rando, aren’t you? From the west?” he asked. “I’ve heard about you. What’re you doing all the way out here?”

“Diplomacy business,” said Buddy, her voice an octave lower than normal. “We’d like some food and drinks.”

“You got it, shorty,” he said, and gestured at a sign on the wall behind him. “That’s what we’ve got. Feel free to stick around, if you want.”

“Thanks, but we’re in a hurry,” Buddy said. She stepped back to collect the magazines, silently congratulating herself on her performance, but Rando shook his head. Scowling, she ordered what they had discussed and he stepped forward to give the bartender the magazines, not letting her see them.  _ Ha, but I get to try alcohol,  _ she thought smugly.

Once they got their food and drinks, they left, and Buddy rubbed her hands together. “Okay, we did it, gimme! Lemme try booze!”

“Boy voice,” Rando reminded her. “W-water only for you.”

“Ugh, you’re no better than Brad,” she grumbled, lowering her voice again.

“I’m d-drinking this to save the water for you,” he said.

“I could just take it from you when you’re sleeping,” Buddy pointed out.

“I r-really don’t think you’d like it...”

“Well, whatever. Let’s move, I wanna get to that Vega guy and take care of him today.” She noticed that the guy watching them earlier had waited for them to leave before heading for the bar, and that he turned back to see them once more before going inside.

“Have you never been out here?” Buddy asked Rando.

“A f-few times. I first came out here a d-d-decade or so ago.”

“Why?”

“After the F-Flash, things...fell apart. F-for a while, we were in chaos. When the d-dust settled, we all m-made some agreements. That’s how the t-territories were established. B-but there are some roving gangs.”

“Like the guys in the creepy smile masks?” Buddy asked. “The ones your guys kept fighting with?”

“Yes,” said Rando. “They d-don’t have territory. There are also smaller gangs that live mostly peacefully w-within larger territories. D-did you never learn about this?”

“Brad and my uncles told me some stuff, but they didn’t go into details. Probably thought I was too young to get it.” She kicked a rock. “At least you tell me  _ some _ things.”

“I’ll tell you what you n-need to know,” Rando said. “You j-just have to ask. B-but there are a few things I won’t say.”

Buddy scowled. “Whatever. I’ll get you to tell me, one day.”  _ Or, if I need to, I’ll make you. _

After stopping to eat, Rando had pointed out the marker for Vega Van Dam’s territory, and they headed through an old mining tunnel. There were stains on the ground and some latches along the walls where lights might’ve gone at one point. Rando had to light a torch for them to navigate. There was a lot of careful movement, as the narrow tunnel was heavily slanted downwards.

It took a while, but eventually the tunnel began to open up. There were a few signs of previous life, like burnt-out candles and trash and the remains of campfires, but nothing that indicated people had been living there recently. “His m-men m-must be further ahead,” Rando said. “B-but keep your eyes out.”

“I know, I know,” Buddy said, and tapped her face. "But I've only got one now." Her words were punctuated with a horrific screech from somewhere ahead of them. “Shit!” she yelped. “What the hell is that?”

“Probably a m-mutant,” said Rando. “We’ll have to fight it.”

“Is it hard to fight them?” Buddy asked, reaching for her sword.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“They’re v-very strong, and they don’t...think,” Rando said, “so their moves are unpredictable. I d-don’t think their minds w-work anymore.”

“Anymore?” Buddy echoed. She stopped. “Wait - that thing that attacked us, that used to be  _ human?!”  _ she demanded, revolted. Her mind flashed back to the creature that had attacked Bolo’s gang, and to the monster that her guardian had become. Both mutants. Both mindless.

Rando nodded. “I d-don’t know why, b-but some men have mutated into those th-things. I’ve had to f-fight them before.”

“Eesh.” Buddy shivered. “Well, hopefully it’s a weaker one, I guess…”

They heard another strange sound, but said nothing further.

The cavern opened up further and steepened. Before it could get too steep to walk, Buddy’s foot found a ladder. “Hold the torch, I’ll get down, then you pass it to me,” she said, and scrambled down. Rando leaned down to hand her the torch, then followed her.

They stopped short at the sound of another low, chilling moan from the mutant that lay ahead of them. “It’s c-close,” said Rando. “B-be ready to fight.”

“Okay,” said Buddy, holding her sword out in front of her. “Wait, how th’ hell are we gonna see? You’re not gonna make me kill this thing myself, right?”

Rando paused, thinking. He then went and touched the torch to one of the piles of detritus. It went up in flames pretty quickly, and spread to scattered debris, lighting up the tunnel but making it significantly hotter in the process. They heard the mutant growl.

“That’ll do it,” said Buddy as she kicked a stick into the growing fire. “Just make sure I don’t fall into it, yeah?”

“I w-will. W-we need to make this quick, this f-fire won’t last long,” he said.

The mutant was around a bend. It was a great, nasty thing, with an eerily normal-looking head on top of an engorged, deformed neck and shoulders. There were flaps of skin between its arms and torso, its legs invisible beneath the mass of flesh that made up the lower half of its body. It was surrounded by dead bodies of men who had tried to kill it, and had arrows and blades sticking out of it, some old, some new.

It swung around to look at them and let out another long, low wail, but didn’t move. It could have been immobile. Buddy resisted the urge to recoil, knowing that this  _ thing _ used to be a  _ person _ . Instead, she popped a Joy pill into her mouth and swallowed it with a quick gulp of water. They both dropped their bags, careful to keep them away from the fires.

“You ready?” she asked Rando. 

“Ready,” he said, and they charged forward.

Whatever reluctance Buddy had been prepared to be irritated about wasn’t present as Rando attacked. He had no hesitation and no qualms about fighting this mutant, but he was still cautious, doing more defense than offense, ducking in to land a few punches before retreating, as it seemed dangerous to get too close. Buddy could tell there was a lot of power behind each wild swing of the mutant’s fists, and when it opened its mouth, she saw hardened, elongated teeth.

“I’ll keep it distracted,” she said, “and you beat it up.” Without waiting for some kind of affirmative, she followed a similar pattern of ducking in and out, but she dealt more obvious pain with every slash of her sword. Pressurized blood sprayed from each wound she inflicted on the mutant, but it didn’t seem to be able to bleed out. Still, mutant or not, it would be weaker with less blood, so until she could find a way to get to its head, hacking its body open was the best option. Joy hummed in her body and she felt renewed strength in her limbs.

The mutant cried out and swiped at her and she dodged at the last moment, her heart pounding as its entire body shifted in her direction. On its other side, she saw Rando trying to aim for certain areas, the way he would do for a human, but it was difficult. Where the hell were the pressure points? Where the hell was its stomach, or groin, or spine, or knees? And, as was becoming a pressing issue for her, where was its heart?

Considering its chest had been warped into oblivion and stabbing it in the heart would be more of a guessing game than anything else, Buddy darted over to Rando and said, “Try to get its head down as close as possible, and I’ll take it off.” She took a few deep breaths. “I think that’s the only way to kill it. Dunno where the heart is.”

“M-me neither,” he said. “D-do you need to get higher?” They had these few seconds of pause because the mutant had stopped fighting and was just staring at them with its dark, emotionless eyes. It almost looked sad.

“That’d be too hard, just try to bring its head down,” Buddy said.

Rando nodded, then moved forward to land some more punches. Using methods Buddy couldn’t and probably would never understand, he summoned a ball of fire that he shot at its body, and it let out a low moan and shifted in his direction. “Move,” he told her, and she did so, getting out of the way. She could tell what he was getting at, and she had to be ready.

He kept jumping in, landing punches, then backing up, and after repeating this a few times, the mutant heaved its entire upper body, which fell forward in front of him with a loud  _ thud.  _ Groaning, the mutant’s arms reached for him, but most of its remaining mobility was gone with its upper body on the ground.

“Now,” he said, and Buddy dashed forward. With a mighty swing, she severed the mutant’s head from its body, and blood gushed from both pieces of flesh. Its body thrashed for a moment, and then all movement ceased. They were left staring at the remains.

“G-good work,” said Rando.

“Thanks, you too,” said Buddy, giving him a half-smile. She found herself hoping he was smiling back under his mask. She cracked her back and boasted, “Can’t believe all these guys couldn’t kill it, but  _ we  _ took it out no problem!”

“W-well, we have...experience, I guess,” Rando said. He retrieved their packs. “C-can you keep moving?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s go.”

Not far up ahead was the tunnel’s exit, and they were both relieved to leave behind the now sweltering heat and the various gross smells of the caverns. But they weren’t so relieved to see what welcomed them on the other side.

“You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” Buddy complained, glaring at the mutant approaching them. This one, unfortunately, was mobile, and was moving quite fast. Its upper body had deformed ‘up’ like the previous mutant, but this one was more twisted than bloated, though the lower half of its face had merged with its elongated neck, giving it a comical appearance.

She sighed and held out her sword. “I dunno if that tactic’ll work this time, but at least I can aim for certain organs.”

“S-so can I,” said Rando, dropping their packs again and readying himself. “G-get behind it. I’ll distract it.”

“‘Kay.”

As Rando hit it hard in its chest, Buddy ran around it, giving it a wide berth, and the mutant was too busy taking Rando’s punches to pay attention to her. She drew back, then lunged forward, jumped, and slashed across its neck. To her shock, despite the burst of blood, the neck and head were still firmly attached to the body. It was admittedly not as strong a strike as the prior decapitation, but this mutant seemed to have thicker skin, certainly thicker than a normal human’s.

It let out a low moan and shifted on its feet to face her. Rando let out a weak shout and hit it harder, but it was focused on her now, gazing balefully down at her. She ducked low and lashed out at its legs, but, again, her sword didn’t cut as deep as it should have. It swiped at her and she dodged, falling over in the process.

“It’s really tough! Like, physically! Can you light it on fire or something?” she asked Rando.

He nodded and prepared a fireball, which struck the mutant in the back. He then punched its spine hard enough to make a normal man collapse, but the mutant merely stumbled forward. He let loose another fireball, then backed away. Parts of its body flickered with flames.

Buddy ran around the mutant until she stood behind it again, feeling the heat from the little fires, then let out a wordless yell and rammed her sword through its back, where she thought some vital organs  _ should  _ be. She withdrew her sword and blood gushed from the wound, and the mutant spat up some blood onto the ground, but it only swayed in place.

“That didn’t kill it?” she asked, dismayed. “Do I gotta decapitate this one too?”

“I can t-try to knock it over,” said Rando.

“I mean, you just hit it really hard and it didn’t fall over, so I dunno if you can,” Buddy said. “Lemme just -” She struck from right to left, carving a red line in the mutant’s back. As it slowly began to turn again, she struck a second time from left to right. “Keep hitting it!” she told Rando as she dodged another swipe.

He did so, and shot a third fireball at it, too, but the mutant didn’t even seem to notice that parts of its body were on fire. It just blinked slowly and showed its teeth.

Buddy had withdrawn, and now she darted forward and stabbed it through the back, in a different place this time. The mutant cried out and growled, but didn’t fall. She swore in frustration and slashed at the same places as before, over and over and over until the mutant’s lower back was more bloody flesh than skin. She tried stabbing it one more time, but this time her blade hit hardened bone and she nearly smashed her forehead into the handle. She stumbled backward, a little dazed.

Then, there was a loud, painful  _ crack -  _ Rando had broken some of the mutant’s bones. “B-Buddy, c-come here and attack it, I b-broke its ribs!” he called.

“Uh-huh!” She shook her head roughly and sprinted back around to face it. There was already heavy bruising in certain parts of its body, along with the stab wounds from before. The mutant blinked slowly, then fixated on Rando. It opened its mouth, drooling its own blood, but before it could lunge forward, Buddy jumped up and stabbed through the bruises, planting her feet against the mutant’s body. She bared her teeth and twisted the blade, tearing skin and flesh and organs as her weight tilted it up and carved a long, bloody hole through the mutant, then ripped it out and fell back, skidding on her feet.

From how the mutant froze, then fell, she assumed she had struck its heart. Blood oozed from the hole in its chest and it let out a wheeze, then fell limp.

“Sick,” said Buddy, pleased. “I can’t believe you were able to  _ bruise  _ the fuckin’ thing! You must be super strong.”

Rando didn’t recognize the compliment, just asked, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, totally fine. Well, maybe we should drink somethin’.” Buddy sat down heavily on a rock and took out a water bottle. Rando did the same with a bottle of some kind of alcohol, though he didn’t drink much.

“Aren’t you thirsty?” Buddy asked.

“Yes, b-but I don’t w-want to be inebriated,” he said. “W-we need our wits about us.”

“Inebriated?”

“It means drunk.”

She waved her bottle of water. “C’mon, I’ll give you some’a this if you let me try it!”

“No,” he said firmly, and took a swig of the alcohol, then capped it and put it back in his pack.

Buddy rolled her eyes and put hers away. “Let’s go, then. Do you think these things used to be Vega’s men?” she asked, kicking the mutant with the toe of her boot.

“M-maybe. The m-men who tried to kill them p-probably were.”

“So maybe it’ll be a bit easier for us. Cool.”

They headed past the body of the mutant only to find that the only exit, another mining tunnel, was fully blocked off.

“For fuck’s sake!” Buddy spat. “How’re we supposed to deal with this?!”

“We can f-find some explosives,” said Rando patiently. He hesitated, then patted her shoulder. “It’ll b-be fine.”

She didn’t react to the gesture. “Fine, then where do we find explosives? Can we buy them?” Buddy asked, her eyebrows still flat against her eyes in irritation. “Can we  _ make  _ them?”

Rando paused. “M-maybe we could...no, I don’t th-think that’d work.”

“Don’t think what’d work?” Buddy asked.

“Alcohol can be explosive,” he explained, “b-but I don’t think it’d be strong enough f-for this m-much stuff. Let’s take a b-break, there’s enough d-daylight that we can go looking for explosives later.”

“Fine,” Buddy grunted, pushing some hair out of her eyes. “I guess I am kinda tired. D’you think we can rest here? Seems like it’d be easy to tell if someone’s coming.”

“Yeah, w-we can stay here,” Rando agreed.

“Cool. Let’s just, like, eat and drink and put our feet up for a bit.” The Joy she took earlier told her to  _ run, fight, kill, kill,  _ but she knew her body wasn’t as ready as her mind was. She had led a mostly sedentary life for thirteen years, which wasn’t boding well for her stamina.

She looked around and her eyes settled on the body of the mutant. Its blank eyes stared in her direction and she averted her gaze from its face, turning to its torn clothes instead.

_ Maybe it’s got some stuff, _ she thought, and headed over to find out. The closer she got the more it stunk, and she wrinkled her nose in disgust as she stuck her hand in its pockets. There was nothing in the left pocket, but in the right one her hands closed around a familiar texture, and she pulled out a few Joy pills.

“Huh,” she said aloud, looking at her hand. She knew a lot of people took the drug, so it made sense that something that used to be human might have been a user, but it was still jarring. The mutant really  _ had _ been a man.

“W-what?” Rando asked from a few feet away.

“Nothing,” she said, adding the pills to her own stash and putting them back in her pocket. “Just checking. No pages.”

He didn’t say anything, but she was pretty sure he saw her take the drugs. She felt that twinge of guilt again, like she had betrayed someone, but what did she care about how some random guy felt about her drug use? It didn’t matter. At all.

The first prickles of withdrawal irritation rose in the back of her throat, but she pushed them away. She would rather take Joy right before their next fight. Taking it now would mean a waste of that brilliant rush of adrenaline, that feeling of power filling her body from the inside out, the hum in her head telling her to  _ move. _ The only positive was that it would stop the thoughts from creeping back in, from old pain poking and prodding its way into her mind again.

Part of her, the part that most resembled the naive child she had left behind, told her that this must have been how Brad felt. But the part of her that was sick with anger and pain shoved it down. She didn’t want to think about him. She didn’t want to know things about him. She didn’t want to know any better. He was finally out of her life, and she wanted him out of her head, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 「the things i will do. what they are, yet i know not, but they will be the terrors of the earth.」


	4. the fury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fuck it, midnight update. mad buddy fury road
> 
> just want you all to know i was jumping around trying to act out these fights to make sure they were kind of feasible and nearly cracked my head open on my desk

Dustin watched Buddy’s every move, and he was sure she knew, and was sure she knew he knew. He saw her take the Joy pills out of the mutant’s pocket, inspect them, then put them in her own. He saw her face contort with different emotions as she rested. He saw her pain, and he felt it, too. It hurt the way his old facial scars still twinged every now and then.

“Are you r-ready to go?” he asked after a while.

“Yep,” she replied, getting to her feet and grabbing her backpack. “So, what, we go back through the tunnel and go looking for explosives? Where th’ hell are we gonna find them?”

“Well, L-Lardy Hernandez deals in supplies,” Dustin said. “W-we could try his territory.”

Buddy nodded. “Sounds good. If I gotta kill for them, I will,” she added brusquely, like a reminder.

“I know,” he said. Without thinking, he said, “S-seems that’s what Armstrongs do,” words born from his own guilt, his own sadness.

Buddy bristled. “I’m  _ not _ an Armstrong. I’m just Buddy. Nothing else. Got it?” she snapped. “I’m  _ nothing _ like Brad.”

“S-sorry,” Dustin said, not wanting to argue with her, despite their obvious similarities. Maybe it was this world and its angry, bloody chaos, or maybe Dustin had left before Brad’s poison could infect him, and it had gotten to her instead. Regardless, it was undeniable that her savage quest didn’t differ too much from Brad’s, at least in terms of execution.

Even at his angriest, Dustin had never turned to brutal violence. Even at his most depressed and suicidal, he had never turned to hard drugs. When he was so bitter, so upset, so lost in his own sadness that he nearly drowned in it, the worst he did was demand to be left alone and cry until he had no tears left. His mental flagellation was all self-inflicted. His emotions went in, and Buddy’s went out.

Different, but similar, now forced together due to an unpredictable circumstance. He still couldn’t believe it was real.

Buddy led the way back through the tunnels, and she stopped to check the bodies of the other mutant and the dead men around it. Dustin had to light a new torch, as the fire he had started earlier had burned out, leaving a lingering stench of burnt trash that they both did their best to ignore. Together they hurried back along the same route.

Eventually, they returned to the crossroads from before. “So, does this land we’re on right now belong to anybody?” Buddy asked, after Dustin pointed her in the right direction for Lardy’s territory.

“N-no, this is a n-neutral zone,” he replied. “Nobody has a c-claim here. The p-people who live near here d-don’t have a leader.”

“So, like, let’s say I’m some guy. If I wanna join a gang, do I just...go and talk to someone who’s in it?” Buddy asked.

“S-sometimes,” Dustin said. “It d-depends on who it is.”

“Was that how you did it?”

“F-for the most part. I t-tried not to turn anyone away. W-why all the questions?”

“I just wanna know stuff,” Buddy said defensively.

“Kids d-do ask a lot of questions,” he concluded.

“I’m not a kid!” she retorted.

He stopped and tilted his head to look down at her, emphasizing their height difference, and she slouched. “I’m just younger than  _ you _ ,” she muttered. “And smaller. Anyway. Should we be quiet? Are we gonna get attacked?”

“M-maybe put your mask back on,” he suggested. “And l-lower your voice.”

She huffed but complied, taking the red mask out of her backpack to equip it. “Does it matter? We’ll kill anyone who attacks us,” she said.

“B-but you don’t want someone to c-call everyone to our location if they s-see you,” he reminded her. “We can fight off t-two men, we can’t fight off t-t-twenty.”

“Right. Fine.”

Lardy’s territory also began with an old, dark mining tunnel, not far off from Vega Van Dam’s. “What are all these from, anyway?” Buddy asked, leaning against the entrance while Dustin prepared another torch.

“People used to mine for c-coal here,” he said. “They used it as energy.”

“How?”

“I’m n-not really sure,” he admitted. “I think they b-burned it.”

“Oh. Why don’t we do that now?” Buddy asked.

Dustin shrugged. “M-most things fell apart after the F-Flash. We reverted b-back to p-proto-civilization b-because people couldn’t deal with what happened.” He poured some gasoline on the torch and lit it.

“Can I hold it?” Buddy asked.

“Um, sure.” Dustin handed it to her and she gazed at it. “Just don’t t-touch it -”

“I’m not a baby, I’m not gonna try to  _ touch  _ the fire!” she retorted, but as they walked forward into the tunnel, Dustin saw her hold up her hand to it, testing the heat. She pulled it away, then tried it again, and he could have rolled his eyes, but he didn’t. It was in spare moments like this that she acted her age and reminded him that she was human, that she was real and alive and here with him. Maybe if things were different, she’d be doing this over the candles on her birthday cake, or with a fire at a camp out, and they’d be a normal family, and they’d be happy.

Dustin shook his head. It wasn’t worth dwelling on.

As she walked, Buddy dwelled on her quest. Since her epiphany at the sight of the list, something had been roiling inside of her, an uncontrollable storm that crackled and roared. She was  _ excited  _ more than anything else, excited just to be  _ doing _ something. Every footstep took her further away from her old prison. Every footstep brought her closer to freedom. Being out in the world, ready to defend herself, unafraid - whatever she felt, it must have been something close to happiness.

She was shocked out of her thoughts when she heard something, and stopped short. “What was that?” she hissed.

“What was what?” asked Rando, keeping his voice down.

She held up a hand and listened, but the sound didn’t occur again, nor did any other.

“It m-might have just been an animal,” said Rando.

“Maybe,” she said, unconvinced. “Let’s stay quiet.”

Soon, faint glowing light marked the approaching exit. There were men talking loudly to each other, loud enough for their voices to carry.

“S-sounds like they’re k-kinda close,” Rando said.

“Let’s try to surprise them,” said Buddy, and she unsheathed her sword. “Maybe we can make this quick.”

They slowed their pace and approached the tunnel exit in dead silence, and the voices grew louder. “...ordered a few days ago,” one was saying. “Mostly oil, I think.”

Buddy glanced over at Rando, who nodded, and they carefully crept out of the tunnel. They emerged on a rock platform above the two men, who were preparing to load a truck with a few barrels. They both looked strong, but were wearing very odd outfits that Buddy squinted at.

“Okay, let’s load it up,” one of them said. “We gotta get this to Lardy before sundown.”

“You got it,” the other said, and, unfortunately, turned in the direction of Buddy and Rando. “Oh, shit!”

“Dammit!” Buddy spat, then ran and jumped off the platform, sword held in front of her. She landed on the back of the truck, next to one of the men, who stumbled away in shock. She slashed out with her sword but he dodged the attack, then headbutted her, and now she was stumbling backwards, dazed.

Rando was on him in seconds. A heavy punch to the side of his face knocked the man off the truck, and Rando jumped down after him. “Are you okay?” he called up to Buddy.

She shook her head rapidly, hoping the dizziness would go away soon. “I’m okay!”

The other man had attacked Rando too, and she wasn’t about to make him fight off two enemies at once. She leaped down and stabbed one of them through the back, then ducked down to slash at his legs, aiming for his heels, remembering one of Brad’s lessons. Her victim collapsed with a cry and clutched the stab wound, blood soaking his hands.

Buddy glanced over at Rando, whose skill had clearly caught the other man off guard, as he was now only aiming to block Rando’s attacks. Rando yanked on his arm, then hit him hard in the stomach, and he crumpled, wheezing.

Buddy darted over and drove her sword through his back, then yanked it back out and turned to face the other man, who was trying to get to his feet and failing, his leg wounds leaking blood onto the ground. She kicked him over and stabbed him through the chest.

Panting, she observed the scene. Both men were either dead or dying. The threat was neutralized. They could continue. She turned out their pockets and found some magazines, but Rando snatched them away from her.

“Hey!” she complained.

“We need to g-get out of here,” Rando said, putting them in his pocket while she scowled. “I’ll d-drive the truck.”

“Okay,” Buddy said with a huff. “Yeah, we should go before anyone else shows up.” She eyed the truck. “You sure you can drive this?”

“Y-yes,” Rando said. “I think.”

“You  _ think?” _

“It’s b-been awhile since I drove,” he admitted. “B-but I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“It better be,” Buddy said. “I’ll ride in the back, then.”

“W-why?”

“Gotta watch our back,” she said. “I won’t, like, fall out, right?”

“The g-ground is pretty even, so p-probably not, but...be careful,” Rando said, like a command.

“I will,” she said, a little surprised by his intensity.  _ Well, I am literally the last hope for the human race, I guess.  _ “I’ll hold onto the walls, don’t worry. Are we gonna get attacked?”

“I hope not,” Rando said, and he headed for the driver’s seat. 

Buddy tossed her backpack and sword onto the truck, then clambered up and pulled the back barrier into place with a  _ click.  _ “All set!” she called, and Rando gave her a thumbs-up out the window. He turned the keys and the truck roared to life, making Buddy jump. “Fuck, that’s loud!” she swore, but got no response. She assumed he couldn’t hear her, which wasn’t great.

The truck began moving and she grabbed onto one side to steady herself. Wind blew her hair all around her face and she spit it out of her mouth. After a few seconds of this, she decided that facing the back bumper would be a better idea, and she hobbled over to sit down, grabbing her sword as she went. She tied the strap of her bag around a piece of metal, hoping that would be enough to keep it from falling off.

The world moved by faster than she’d ever seen. Trees, hills, boulders, cliffs in the distance, fields, stacks of crates...it was a lot of land.  _ Does it all belong to this one dude?  _ Maybe his gang was really big. Or maybe he was just greedy.

In the distance, she heard a loud  _ honk,  _ and assumed it was another vehicle. Then another, and another. Not a good sign.

She tried to angle her body to be as close to the driver’s seat as possible, then yelled, “HEY! RANDO!”

“WHAT?” he shouted back, and slowed down the car so he could hear her.

“Did you hear those cars honking?” she asked.

“Y-yeah,” he said. They both still had to talk pretty loudly. “M-maybe they found the b-bodies.”

“They won’t know it’s us, right? Like,  _ us  _ us?”

“I d-don’t know how they w-would know.”

There were a few more honks, and then the sound of cars starting. “That ain’t good,” Buddy said.

“N-no. Hold on, I’m g-gonna go faster.”

“Okay -  _ whoa!” _ she yelped as the engine rumbled and the car shot forward, sending her falling back a few feet. She staggered up, standing with her feet far apart to steady herself, and faced behind them. Her face dropped. “Oh, shit.”

The objects on the horizon were blurry, but she could tell from the noise and the shape that they were other vehicles. And from what she could see, these weren’t delivery trucks like the one Rando was driving. These looked more like vehicles for battle, with spikes jutting out from the sides.

The noise increased in volume and she crawled back to the driver’s window. “RANDO!” she yelled.

“WHAT NOW?” he shouted, not slowing down this time.

“THERE’S CARS BEHIND US! GO FASTER!”

She gripped tight to the barrier as he complied, and she turned her face away from the dust and wind, debating putting her mask back on. Looking back, she saw that the vehicles were fast approaching. There were a few more loud horn blasts, and she winced, then withdrew her sword.

One vehicle pulled ahead of the rest, and a man leaned out of the passenger’s seat’s window. She heard him shout something unintelligible and swore, hoping that she didn’t look female from that great of a distance.  _ Some guys have long hair, right? _ she thought, but she didn’t dare think that would be enough to keep them out of danger. Regardless of who she and Rando were, these guys were pissed off.

Another man appeared, standing on the roof of the first vehicle, and crawled forward until he was standing on the hood. He pulled out a shotgun, and Buddy didn’t think, just dropped to the floor.

The  _ bang _ of the gun going off was audible over the sound of the engines. Buddy heard Rando yell, but couldn’t hear the words, and didn’t bother trying to get to the driver’s window to respond.  _ Maybe I can get that guy to waste his bullets before they can get too close to us.  _ She stood up, then dropped to the floor again, and another gunshot rang out. She repeated the gesture a few more times before he seemed to realize what she was doing and stopped shooting. Her moment of relief was ruined by the car speeding up.

Her heart raced. Her enemies were coming into focus, men of all shapes and sizes in three cars. Some stood on hoods with the confidence of men who had done this before. Others had their upper bodies leaning out of empty window panes.

“It’s her!” she heard one yell. “Don’t shoot! Get in close! Do  _ not  _ fuck this up! Limbs only!”

_ Limbs only.  _ Her blood boiled.  _ All I am is a warm body to them. My reproductive system. My free will doesn’t matter to them. So they don’t matter to me. _

The words echoed in her mind, her six-word mantra repeating over and over as the cars grew closer. They had given their plan away - they were going to try to kidnap her, and not injure any “valuable” part of her body. They wouldn’t be fighting to kill. But she would be.

The tickle in the back of her throat told her what she was already thinking, and she fumbled in her pocket for a Joy pill. She took it dry, summoning as much saliva as possible to swallow it down, and waited in anticipation for the rush she was coming to crave.

As the Joy began to pulse through her body, every thought, every planned action felt justified, felt  _ right. _ Of course she would kill all of them. There were no other options, Joy told her, and she agreed.

When the first car pulled up and the first men jumped off to land on the truck, she was ready, lunging forward, yelling, slashing down with her sword, and that was enough to throw them off their rhythm. One man was lucky enough to grab hold of the barrier, but the other wasn’t, and fell hard to the ground. All vehicles left him in the dust moments later. Buddy raised her foot and stomped hard on the other man’s hand, but he didn’t let go. She had to stab his hand to get him to fall off the truck.

She heard metal creak behind her and whipped around to see another man was prepared to leap off of a decorated car and onto the truck. He held a bloodied machete. When he jumped, she met him, and their blades clashed, making her wince. His momentum was strong enough to knock her back, but she recovered quickly and struck again. He blocked her second attack, then aimed for her left arm. Taking a risk, she moved her upper body towards the blade, and the man had to pull away at the last second, leaving him open. As he stumbled, she stabbed him through the stomach. He dropped the blade and collapsed backwards, pulling the back barrier down with him as he fell. Buddy made a move for his fallen blade, but the truck sped over a bump in the road and it tumbled off.

With three men either dead or badly injured, the remaining pursuers had lost some of their enthusiasm, but desperation was a powerful motivator. “Rip the tires!” A man from the backseat shouted, and two cars’ engines roared as they sped up to surround the truck.

_ Shit. _ Buddy scrambled forward to the drivers’ window. “THEY’RE AIMING FOR THE TIRES!” she shouted. “DO SOMETHING!”

Rando didn’t respond, and she hoped he had heard her, but she couldn’t afford to wait around to find out. She looked between the cars, looking to see where the next attacker would come from, but was taken off guard when two men from different cars jumped in unison. One landed awkwardly on the right barrier and fell onto his knees, while the other landed on his feet. Without checking, Buddy charged him first. He whipped out a gun, aimed at her right shoulder, and fired, all in the space of a few seconds, and she let out a yelp as she managed to dodge the bullet. It whistled past her arm and into open air.

The gun-toter was already reloading, while the second man had gotten to his feet and brandished a dagger. Buddy’s eyes flickered between the two as she tried to form a plan.

As the gun-toter prepared to shoot again, the dagger-wielder dove for her. Buddy sidestepped his attack and ducked behind him just as the first man fired. To her relief, the bullet hit her human shield and he dropped, howling. While the gun-toter swore, Buddy leapt over the fallen man and stabbed him through the chest before he could fire again. She yanked the sword out, then kicked him hard in the stomach, sending him tumbling over the side of the truck.

She heard movement behind her and whirled around as the injured man ran at her, dagger in his raised hand. She knocked it out of his hand with her saber, then slashed across his stomach. Blood spurted from the wound and the man collapsed. The truck drove over another bump and he, too, was knocked off.

While she had been preoccupied with the fight, the drivers were trying to tear the truck tires. Rando had been able to avoid them, but it was only a matter of time, as the truck couldn’t reach the same speeds as the cars. One man aimed a shotgun out of a rear window, but not at her. A few gunshots came from behind them, in the furthest car, but the bullets apparently weren’t strong enough to penetrate the wheels, or the shooter had missed.

Dread raised the hair on her arms; she knew what she had to do. Blood and Joy pumping in her body, Buddy hauled herself onto the roof of the truck, and then - she took a deep breath - jumped onto the hood of the car on her left. This shocked the driver enough to jerk the car wildly to the left, nearly throwing her off, but she was able to maintain her balance. Thankfully, as she planned, the man with the shotgun aimed at her instead, but there was another man with a gun in the other car. If he shot Rando, it was over. 

As her mind screamed swear words in sheer panic, she lunged forward, through the empty window of the car, and drove her sword into the driver’s forehead, breaking his skull with a painful  _ crack.  _ The man in the passenger’s seat yelled in shock and Buddy struck him across the face before he could react any further.

The car, now out of control, tilted dangerously to the left, and Buddy quickly scrambled onto the roof of the car to leap back onto the truck, landing heavily on her feet in the back. The man in the backseat had dropped his shotgun in order to scramble into the driver’s seat, so he wasn’t a problem, at least for now. Almost dizzy from how hard her heart was pounding, Buddy turned her attention to the other cars. The one on their tail seemed to be struggling with its engine, as it had fallen behind. The one to their right was still a threat.

She kept an eye on it, and looked forward. Her heart dropped - they were rapidly approaching a giant rock formation, and Rando was driving straight towards it.

“RANDO!” she yelled, unsure if he could hear her. “WE’RE GONNA CRASH!”

Suddenly, she was knocked off her feet, and she fell to the bed of the truck and rolled over to the left wall. Rando had swerved the truck swiftly to the left, turning away at the last second. The truck teetered dangerously for an instant before it righted itself, and Buddy watched as the car, which hadn’t turned in time, crashed into the rock. This explosion would have knocked her down if she hadn’t already been on her hands and knees, and she watched the flames in shock.  _ Good move,  _ she thought.

A rumble from above told her that the crash had damaged the foundations of the rock formation. Looking up, she saw deep cracks had appeared, and some bits of stone began to crumble.

She looked back. The last car was still lagging.  _ Maybe...if it’s slow enough… _

But then, to her dismay, the car’s engine roared to life again and it rocketed forward. She heard the cocking of the shotgun as the distance between the two vehicles shrank, and her mind whirled in a search for the next move. The rock formation definitely wasn’t going to fall fast enough to crush the car.

She would have to make another risky move. But, she realized as she felt some strength leave her body, she needed a little help.

She ducked and rolled just in time to avoid the first gunshot, then scrambled across the back of the truck to her backpack, which had remained lodged in the corner. She was breathing too heavily to dry-swallow a pill again. She grabbed a water bottle, hurriedly removed the cap, popped a pill in her mouth, and chugged. As she swallowed, she capped the bottle and shoved it back in her bag, then jumped to her feet. She had to time this extraordinarily well.

The car was almost on their tail. Another gunshot rang out and she dodged, but felt it whistle past her ear. “Don’t aim for her head, you fucking idiot!” she heard the driver shout.

“She’s moving too much!” the man in the back shouted in reply.

_ I can move more than that. _ Buddy darted erratically back and forth as she tried to position herself as far away from the car as possible. The additional Joy filled her with the energy, the adrenaline she needed as the car rammed into the back of the truck. Throwing all caution to the wind, she sprinted forward, then threw herself onto the hood of the car, another bullet missing her by inches. 

While the driver and passenger swore in shock, she hauled herself onto the roof, then stabbed blindly through the rear window. She heard a yelp, but it wasn’t loud enough to imply that she had struck an important organ. Still, that moment was all she needed to slide off the edge, her left hand clinging tightly to the rim on the top of the car, and kick the shotgun out of the man’s hands. She nearly dropped her sword, but was able to stab the man in the shoulder. In the front, the passenger and driver were yelling something she couldn’t hear over her heart pounding in her ears. She swung into the car through the window and kicked the man in the face, then stabbed him in the stomach. She dropped her sword in order to open the other door and shove him out of it. Wind blasted her face and she winced against it, but she didn’t have time to close the door.

As the man in the passenger’s seat was fumbling for whatever weapon he had, she crawled out through the back window and got back onto the roof of the car, then slid onto the hood. The driver jerked the car to one side, trying to throw her off, and the passenger aimed a pistol at her legs. She dropped to her hands and knees, forcing him to jerk the gun away and fire off in a random direction. Buddy stabbed him through the chest, then locked eyes with the driver, who stared at her in sheer terror.

“If you want to live,” she said, “make sure I get back on that truck.” 

He didn’t say anything, just kept driving, and the car bumped against the truck again.

Buddy leaned forward, grabbed the pistol from the limp passenger, then ran and jumped back onto the truck. Once steady, she examined the pistol. It wasn’t too different than the one she had learned to use. With that in mind, it was easy to cock it, aim at the driver, and shoot him through the forehead.

The driver slumped, the car began to slow, and it was over.

Buddy collapsed to her knees, gasping for breath. The Joy that had been fueling her wasn't strong enough to block out all exhaustion. Her chest heaved, her whole body shook, her head spun, and she nearly fell onto her face. Clutching her sword, she hobbled backward until she had something to lean against.

The car slowed, and now she could hear Rando shouting. “B-Buddy! Are you -“

“I’m fine!” she wheezed, then coughed. “I’m fine,” she repeated loudly.

“Are they all -“

“They’re all gone!” she shouted. “We can slow down.”

Rando did so, and the growling of the engine quieted to a purr that was interrupted by an enormous  _ crash _ from behind them. Buddy turned to see that the rock formation had collapsed into a pile of stone. They had left the car and its dead passengers far behind them.

“Well, it’s gonna be hell getting back,” she commented. “Can I get in the front seat?” Not waiting for an answer, she grabbed her things and hauled herself through the open window, then crawled over the armrest to sit in the front seat with a  _ thump. _

She glanced at Rando. “You good?”

His head turned towards her, and he was dead silent for a few moments, then said, “Are  _ you?” _

“Well, I think I’m having a heart attack, but other than that, I’m fine,” she said. “How much of that did you see?”

“Enough,” he said. “D-did you really kill all of them?”

“I think some might just be  _ very injured. _ Who cares? They’re off our back. Uh, but now that we’re safe, do you know where we’re going?”

“I’ve been f-following this p-path,” Rando said. Buddy hadn’t noticed it earlier, but there was paint on the ground and rocks pointing them in the direction of...something.

“Where does it go?”

“Don’t know. Hopefully to their s-stores.”

“Yeah, we gotta get those explosives,” said Buddy. “Er, how are we gonna get back, though? We’re gonna have to go off road, there was a rockfall behind us.”

“I can p-probably just t-take a detour,” said Rando. “Look,” he added, gesturing at a sign nailed to a tree. It was made up of arrows pointing in different directions, with words scrawled on it in thick black ink. Pointing back to where they had come from was “NEUTRAL ZONE” and “UNLOADING ZONE”; forwards was “UNIV. STORAGE”, “LARDY’S SHELTER”, and “GARAGE”.

“There ya go, then,” said Buddy. “Ooh, can we get a faster car for the trip back?”

“Maybe,” Rando said. He glanced over at her again. “I c-can’t believe you just  _ did _ that. H-how are you  _ alive?” _

“Joy, probably. I take that stuff, and  _ bam, _ suddenly I’m super strong and full of energy and I can do  _ anything.”  _ Buddy mimed a punch. “But they also weren’t really attacking me, ‘cause they didn’t want to injure any ‘important’ part of my body, right? So it wasn’t that hard to dodge or to move my head or upper body in the way so they pull back at the last second. I was like, using my body as bait. And it worked. Anyway, I hope it’s not hard to find explosives. Do you know what they look like?”

“I’ll kn-know when I see them,” Rando said. “You should d-drink some water.”

“Good idea. Also, that was a good move earlier, when you got that car to crash,” she added, and gave him a smile. “You saved my ass. And yours. They were pointing guns at you.”

“T-trust me, I saw,” he said.

“It’s cool seeing you in action,” Buddy said, reclining, putting her feet up on the dashboard and sliding far down the seat in the process. “You’re good at fighting. I mean...I know fighting Brad fucked you up, but you’re still strong.”

“I d-don’t want to fight,” Rando said, sounding a little sad. “When you learn self-d-defense, you learn it as a p-p-preventative measure. I didn’t learn it because I w-wanted to hurt others. It’s wrong.”

“Is it wrong when they attack you first?” Buddy countered. “You think that would’ve worked on those guys back there? We’d both be dead.”

“I know,” he said.

“Cool. So I’m right.”

He didn’t respond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 「i'd rather live with your judgment than die with your sympathy.」


	5. the hunter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> self promo of the week is [this drawing of buddy i did](https://twitter.com/cursedskye/status/1104885036564733952) last year that still kinda holds up

Dustin parked the truck outside of a large shelter as the shadows began to elongate. Some of his fear eased with the noise of the engine, but more gathered in its place. He had no idea how they were going to find explosives, let alone obtain them without alerting the entire gang. But Buddy was counting on him, and that came first, no matter the trepidation in every step he took.

“So Lardy’s around here somewhere, right?” Buddy asked as she hopped off of the truck. She had put her mask back on temporarily. “Maybe we’ll have to gank him before we find some explosives.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at her terminology. “Wh-where’d you learn that word?”

“What, ‘gank’? I dunno, I heard someone use it, and it sounds funny. _Gank._ That _does_ mean ‘kill’, right?”

“I g-guess it does,” he said.

“Let’s start there,” Buddy said, gesturing at a clump of stationary trucks that sat in front of a large warehouse. Without waiting for confirmation, she started walking towards it.

“Buddy, w-wait,” said Dustin reluctantly. “Are you sure -“

“I’m not having this argument again,” she cut him off. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“It’s just - his f-family helps a lot of p-people -“

“I don’t give a shit!” she snapped. “His guys tried to kill us! If people want help, they should help themselves. Relying on someone just makes you weak. You’re helping me, but I don’t _need_ you,” she said, defensively separating herself from her statement. “We’re working together. And we’ll work together to kill him, or you’ll step back and let me do it myself.”

Dustin, suddenly tired, didn’t want to argue. “Okay,” he said. “L-let me go first.”

“Fine.” Buddy waited and let him take the lead, trotting behind him. He heard her fumble in her backpack and assumed she was going to take more Joy pills. _Again?_ he thought, dismayed. _Is that normal?_ None of his closest confidants were Joy addicts, so he didn’t know. More than once a day felt like too much.

“Here.” He glanced down; Buddy was just handing him her water bottle. “Your throat’s probably real dry ‘cause of all that dust. Mine was. And I don’t want you accidentally getting drunk and fucking things up, so just drink the water,” she said, sounding grouchy.

He took the bottle, adjusted his mask, drank, and saw how she looked away. It stung, but he understood. He didn’t like seeing his face either.

“Thanks,” he said when he handed the bottle back to her.

She grunted and put it away again. “We should eat later too. Ugh, when I was with the fuckin’...I dunno what they called themselves. The guys in the smile masks. They had, like, _no_ food. And their leader is so fucking weird. I don’t think I told you, he showed up after the battle and stopped Brad from attacking me.”

“I thought B-Brad died,” Dustin said, confused.

“No, he...mutated, I guess.”

Dustin stopped and stared at her. “ _Brad_ m-mutated? When?” Some gears were turning in his head, but it was a slow process.

“After the battle sometime. I dunno when exactly. Anyway, that leader guy like, caught him,” Buddy mimed throwing a rope, “n’ dragged him - it? - off, and he also gave me some stuff. And this dude literally _maimed_ me.” She gestured at her chest. “ _He_ did this. He said sorry, but -“

“The leader of the J-Joy gang did that to you?” Dustin interrupted, a rare spark of rage igniting within him. “ _Why?”_

“He was fucking with Brad. He made him choose between killing three guys or, y’know.”

“Do you...think Brad m-made the right decision?” Dustin asked. He felt ill just looking at her, and he tried to keep his anger down. 

“I mean...the bitter part of me says no. But the logical part of me says yes. It’s just a part of my body, after all. It hurt, and it still kinda hurts, but it’s not the same as three people dying for no reason, y’know? For all I know, those guys were the rare non-creepy type. Maybe they were nice. Like you.” His smile went unseen under his mask, but he thought he saw hers in her eyes. “But yeah,” she continued, “I guess the leader guy felt bad about doing that. Maybe he’s less of a fuckin’ psycho than I thought.”

“Maybe.” _Apparently not,_ Dustin thought. He had hoped his paths wouldn’t cross with Bernie - Buzzo - ever again. That hope had been dashed during their first skirmish, years ago, and they had clashed since, though Dustin himself usually didn’t participate in the conflict, and Buzzo never found out who he was. Embarrassing as it was, he had relished in some rare feelings of righteous vengeance after his men had easily driven them off prior to the battle with Brad, and had some childish pride in how he still practiced martial arts when Buzzo now used a sword or a gun. Armstrongs were steadfast; he knew that with his father, himself, and now, his sister. For better or for worse, they didn’t give up.

They had reached the entrance to the building, and heard a voice from inside. “Dory, Terry, you idiots finally here? For fuck’s sake, you were due ages ago! Get in here so we can record the shipment!”

Buddy glanced at Dustin and they entered together. The speaker, a rather large Latin man, looked up from a large book. He had two big machine guns strapped to his waist. “Rando? What’re you doing here?” he demanded. “We got a deal going they didn’t tell me about?” He glanced at Buddy. “Who’s this little guy?”

Buddy stepped forward. “Are you Lardy Hernandez?” she asked, not bothering to disguise her voice.

He squinted at her. “That’s me...”

She tore off her mask, dropped her things, and drew her sword. “Great.” She attacked.

Caught off guard, Lardy only barely missed her first blow, and she only left a cut on his right arm. He swore loudly and fumbled for his guns, but this left him open for a second attack. Buddy slashed down from right to left and caught his arm again, then aimed to stab him in the gut, but he raised one gun and blocked the blade.

It wasn’t until he aimed the loaded gun at her that Dustin stepped in, yanking one arm back and punching him hard on the back, sending him toppling forward, and Buddy stabbed him through the side. Not a mortal wound, but a bloody one.

“What the - hell is this shit?” Lardy sputtered, stumbling. “It’s the girl! Rando, what the fuck?”

Dustin didn’t speak. He couldn’t. Every part of him screamed that this was wrong.

Lardy shook off the surprise and shoved Buddy to the ground, knocking her sword out of her hands. She reached for it, but he held her right wrist down. “You little bitch! Makin’ things difficult -”

Dustin’s reluctance left him the moment he saw his sister in danger, and he kicked Lardy out of the way, then kicked him hard in the stomach. Buddy was getting up, fumbling for her sword, but Lardy had gotten hold of one of his guns, and he raised it, aiming at Dustin’s face.

Buddy let out an animalistic scream loud enough to startle Lardy into firing a round of bullets into the wall of the truck instead of Dustin’s head. She struck down, aiming for his arm, but Lardy dodged and scrambled away. Dustin backed off for a moment, exhilarated, and blinked at her. _She saved my life._ He hadn’t expected that.

Seconds ticked by as the three stared each other down. Lardy had one hand clutching his stab wound, the other on a gun. Buddy clutched her sword in both of her hands, baring her teeth. Dustin waited, preparing to jump back into the fight, prickles of doubt and dismay raising the hair on his arms.

As Lardy held up a gun, Dustin and Buddy charged. Lardy chose to aim at Dustin, and he swerved to avoid the next round of bullets that broke the ceiling of the truck. Buddy tried for another stab to the stomach, but Lardy hit her in the head, knocking her aside again. Dustin aimed for his neck, elbowed him between his shoulders, then punched him hard in the side, his knuckles hitting the stab wound. As Buddy staggered to her feet, Lardy collapsed, swearing up a storm in pain. Buddy, her face contorted with rage, stomped on his face. Once, twice, three times. She had broken his nose and his face was covered in blood.

It was too much. It was unnecessary. It was wrong. “Buddy, stop _. Stop_ ,” Dustin said, almost begging.

She looked at him and seemed to come out of a trance, then stepped aside. “You’re right,” she said, no emotion in her voice. “No point in dragging this out.” With that, she kicked Lardy onto his back and stabbed him through the chest, the blade striking the floor of the truck.

“My brothers…” he choked out, blood bubbling in his mouth. “I’m...coming...please...take me...back…”

His last words faded to silence.

“That was too messy,” Buddy said. “Let’s be cleaner about it next time.”

Dustin couldn’t respond. Grief tore through him like a hurricane. _He didn’t have to die. This didn’t have to happen. I didn’t have to do this._

“You s-saved me,” was all he said.

Buddy glanced at him. “Huh? Oh. I guess I did.”

“You d-didn’t have to,” Dustin said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. S’ what we do, we help each other. And what d’you mean, I didn’t have to?” Buddy asked with a scoff. “Of course I had to.”

She didn’t elaborate further, maybe out of stubbornness. Dustin didn’t push it, just held onto that shred of her humanity, her compassion, and refused to let go, even as he stood in her victim’s cooling blood.

“Anyway, we need to find explosives and get out of here,” said Buddy. “Maybe there’ll be some in the shipment logs he mentioned.” She headed over to some boxes filled with papers and knelt down to look through them. She paused, then said, “Okay, you should do this, because unless they’re all called ‘explosives’, I’m not gonna know what to look for.”

“I’ll t-take a look,” Dustin said, and took the papers from Buddy’s hands. He scanned the paper, then the one underneath it. To his relief, that paper had TNT scrawled as a listing in one of the incoming shipments. Another column said it was stored in section H, box 12.

It took a bit of hunting around the warehouse, and keeping out of sight from a few workers, but eventually they found the big H emblazoned above a series of boxes. Buddy found box 12 and together they tried to open it without a lot of fuss. After a minute or so of struggle, they were able to pry it open and take the TNT. Dustin quickly shoved it into his pack and they scurried off unharmed.

“Okay, now we gotta find a car,” said Buddy, looking around. “Did you see a sign for the garage?”

“No. We can’t be r-reckless and wander around. L-let’s just take the t-truck,” said Dustin. He was sure that, sooner or later, someone would find out that Lardy was dead - it hadn’t exactly been a quiet murder, but they heard other gunshots going off in the distance - and the whole gang would be on high alert for the assassins in their midst. There were a few men walking around, moving crates or packages or just inspecting the area.

Buddy pointed. “There’s a car over there.”

Not far from where they had haphazardly parked the truck, someone had parked a car outfitted with spikes, similar to those they had encountered previously.

“I’m smaller, so you hide back here, and I’ll go see if they left the keys in it,” said Buddy. Before Dustin could protest, she had dropped her backpack and scrambled behind some crates, keeping an eye out for gang members, then sprinted to the car and jumped in through the front window. A moment passed before she raised her hand and gave a thumbs-up. Dustin looked from left to right and waited for a few men to pass before he grabbed Buddy’s pack and hurried over to the car.

“Okay, hurry up,” Buddy said. “Hopefully this thing’ll go faster.”

“Hopefully,” Dustin said, and turned the keys. The engine rumbled a lot louder than he was hoping, and he heard a few people shouting. _Shoot._ He quickly put the car in reverse, backed up, then switched to drive to turn around.

Buddy was looking out the window. “Shit, I think they heard us, go!”

Dustin slammed his foot on the gas pedal and the car jumped forward, nearly knocking Buddy face-first into the dashboard. The car went from zero to 30, and Dustin watched as the speedometer crawled from 30 to 35 to 40 and up, wishing it could go faster.

“Is anyone behind us?” He had to raise his voice to ask.

“Can’t tell, we already left them in the dust,” said Buddy, who had put her mask back on and was leaning out the window. “That was a good escape. We did _real_ good today. Nice job.”

 _We did no good today._ Dustin raised his eyes to the road but kept his foot firmly on the gas. _All we did was kill._

“Buddy,” he said, “did that...make you f-feel better?”

“Huh? Uh...kind of,” she said. “It makes me feel...safer. Stronger. With every guy I kill, that’s another guy who will never be able to hurt me. And killing their leaders shows ‘em that they shouldn’t mess with me.” She cracked her knuckles. “This was just the beginning. Soon they’ll _all_ know that I’m not fucking around. My name will be on that list if I have to write it there myself. Why d’you ask?”

His heart hurt for her. No undamaged person - undamaged _child -_ thought the way she did, felt such anger and hatred and fear. Whatever she had suffered under Brad’s care, it would have only been exacerbated and heightened during the chaos that had followed. Would she have been better or worse off if his army had never raided her home, if she had stayed hidden away forever? They would never know.

“I w-want to know how you think,” Dustin said. 

Buddy just gave a dismissive grunt, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw how she focused on him. He almost felt threatened. _What would she do if I tried to stop her? Would I be able to fight her?_ It was a sickening thought.

But then she said, “Look, I’m...sorry for being so aggressive, I guess. I know you’re helping me and I should be grateful for that. I don’t need you because I don’t need anyone, but it would be more difficult without you. I mean, I dunno how I would have made it to Lardy without you today. So, thanks. And...I’ll try to...consider your side of things,” she said begrudgingly. “I’ll listen to you. But you won’t change my mind with this, so don’t try to. Got it?”

“Got it,” said Dustin, a little relieved. Maybe he could get through to her with _some_ things, even if he couldn’t stop her seeking vengeance. He wasn’t going to give up on her. He wouldn’t abandon his sister, no matter what.

They made it back to the mining tunnel with no cars on their tail, and the sun was starting to set, the sky fading from blue to yellow and streaks of orange. The men who had challenged them initially were gone. “Guess those guys got dragged off,” Buddy said. She yawned. “We should get outta here and find some place to rest.”

A short trek later and they had returned to the neutral zone. Dustin began hunting around for places where they could sleep without fear of attack, and Buddy trotted after him. “So, question,” she said. “If this is a neutral zone, does that mean we’re safe?”

“N-no,” Dustin said. “It just means that this l-l-land doesn’t b-belong to any gang. We could still be attacked. That’s wh-why we have to find a place with p-protection.”

“Got it. Maybe over there?” Buddy suggested, gesturing over to a cliff with a few overhangs that offered shelter. “Could we keep an eye out for danger up there?”

“If we can g-get up there, yes,” Dustin said.

It took a bit of effort, but they were able to set up a small camp under the overhang. By that time, the sun had set, and Buddy was shivering, though she was clearly trying to hide it. Dustin collected some branches and dried grass and made a small fire. Hopefully anyone who came by would assume they were ordinary nomads.

“I’m sleeping first,” said Buddy with a yawn. She took off her shoes and set them by her feet. “Wake me up when you get tired.”

“Okay,” said Dustin. He watched her adjust her backpack to use it as a pillow, then curl up inside her shawl and close her eyes. Her eyebrows were furrowed in stress even as she tried to sleep.

“Goodnight, sis,” he said quietly. One day, he would be brave enough to tell her the truth. But not today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 「these violent delights have violent ends.」


	6. the ruthless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> u have no idea how hard it was not to make a game grumps reference in this........i fired. i fired. i missed. i missed again. i reloaded, and then i fired, and then i missed  
> of course there is la croix in the post-apocalypse bc its water, it doesn't expire, you absolute fool, you buffoon  
> anyway thank you for reading xoxo love u

The silence of the morning, so far only punctured by the cries of birds, was absolutely obliterated when Rando set off the TNT. Rocks and bits of wood flew everywhere. Buddy and Rando had huddled behind a boulder and they winced as rubble bounced off of it and landed elsewhere. Once the last of the debris had fallen, Buddy stuck her head up above the boulder.

“Damn!” she exclaimed. “That really did it, huh? Wow! That’s  _ sick. _ Was that all the TNT or do we have more? We should set it off super far away so we can watch things explode!”

“There’s some m-more,” said Rando, “but we need to save it just in c-case there’s another b-blockade.”

“Oh. I  _ guess _ ,” Buddy said with a huff. She had taken off her mask earlier, and now she reattached and adjusted it. “Uh...do you think anybody heard that?”

“We’ll find out,” Rando said. “B-be careful, the exp-plosion might have knocked rocks loose in the t-tunnels.”

To their relief, the tunnels were unaffected, but they still hurried their way down a series of rope ladders. Someone had hung lanterns up along the walls, so they were definitely in occupied territory, but there was no indication that people were in the tunnels at that moment. After landing at the bottom of the final rope ladder, Buddy pointed towards the visible exit. No noise came from outside, so she felt confident enough to jog out of the tunnel and into the light of day.

They faced a stretch of sun-bleached stone and earth, a craggy and uneven landscape sandwiched between two rocky ridges. Wind whistled and echoed in the small canyon and ruffled their clothes.

“So this is really all his land?” Buddy asked, keeping her voice down. 

Rando nodded.

Buddy unsheathed her sword and held it in her right hand. “His guys must be around here, then. Stay quiet.”

Making their way forward quickly became a complicated process. They had to climb and crawl and squeeze above and under chunks of rock. Buddy slipped and accidentally kicked a bunch of rocks off a hill and they froze for a few seconds, waiting for any kind of reaction. After nothing occurred, they kept moving.

They were carefully walking up a large mound of boulders when a gunshot rang out, and Buddy immediately dropped to the ground, then glanced around her. Rando had also ducked. They only had a second to register that neither of them had been shot before the gun went off again. And again, nothing hit them.

They locked eyes and Buddy gestured forward, tilting her head. Rando nodded, so she carefully got to her feet and looked around. She didn’t see anyone or hear any movement.

They both jumped as the gun went off for a third time. “It’s coming from up ahead,” said Rando quietly. “I think someone’s b-beneath us.”

Buddy perked up. “Maybe we can take ‘em out without a fuss.” She walked up to the edge of the boulders and looked down. About fifteen feet beneath them, a man was shooting at a tied-up dummy with a bottle sitting on its head and no bullet holes in its body. He reloaded and fired, but missed again.

Buddy narrowed her eyes. If she was careful and aimed properly, she could leap and kill him on the way down. Just cut his neck from behind. Fast, silent, fatal. As long as he didn’t shout.

She turned around and held a finger to her lips. Rando nodded. As quietly as possible, she set down her backpack, then took off her shawl, as it made too much noise in the wind. Underneath, she wore a pink shirt that had seen better days, with rips and tears on the sleeves and hem. She pulled out her sword and set the sheath down.

She approached the edge again. She held out her sword, bent her knees, and jumped.

For a moment, the world blurred, and Buddy’s focus narrowed until all she saw was the back of the man’s neck. She gritted her teeth and swung her sword down, almost too scared to watch -

The blade hit home and blood spurted out, some drops hitting her face. The man slumped and she landed on his back, rolling off to the right and getting to her feet. He didn’t move. Buddy scrambled over and checked; he was dead. She wore a little half-smile of satisfaction and wiped the blood off of her cheek.

She glanced up at where Rando was still standing. “Come down,” she said, speaking normally, hoping he could hear her. “He’s dead.”

Rando didn’t jump, but clambered down off to the right, holding all of her things. He was about to hand them to her when he froze.

“What?” Buddy asked, grabbing for her bag. “Gimme.”

She took her bag, shawl, and sword sheath from him while he stood there in silence. “What?” she asked again, impatiently. “Snap outta it.”

“S-sorry,” Rando said. “I just - I th-thought that was a dummy.”

“It’s not?” Buddy asked, and turned around. Her stomach turned; the “dummy” was a dead man tied to a pole, his face mutilated beyond recognition, his clothes soaked with blood. “Oh. Yuck.”

While Rando stood still, she walked over to the body, wrinkled her nose at the smell, and kicked it in the side. The bottle fell off and she caught it. “Free bottle,” she said, waving it at Rando.

He didn’t say anything, just waited as she re-equipped all of her things, then followed her as she moved on.

The next break in the monotony of travelling over rocks was when Buddy heard two men talking below them. She and Rando were crossing a precarious ledge of a cliff face, which was not a good place to stop, nor a good place to run from or fight an enemy. She glanced back at him, and he gestured for her to keep moving. She nodded and continued to choose her steps carefully, avoiding loose stones. As she tiptoed along, she tried to pick out what the men were saying.

“He said the shipments just didn’t show up,” one of them said.  _ Guy One,  _ Buddy decided. “He was pissed, but what was he supposed to do about it, y’know? S’ the risks you take when you live in a neutral zone.”

“Damn right,” said Guy Two. “We may have to deal with Van Dam’s dumb shit, but at least he’ll take care of anything that happens. Did Jeff pick up our shipments? Weren’t we supposed to be getting rations today?”

“Uh...not sure. Maybe. I haven’t seen Jeff since he left this morning. You know how fuckin’ hard it is to drag stuff around out here, it’ll probably take him ‘till midday to get back.”

“I dunno...he’s usually faster than this. I swear they were due to arrive at our storage by now. We’re running out, and you just know Van Dam’s gonna take it out on  _ some  _ poor schmuck around here.”

“Well, maybe the shipment schedule got fucked up. M’ sure it happens on occasion.”

“I guess. Still. Feels like ever since the girl rumors started, everything’s been thrown off balance,” said Guy Two.

Buddy’s heart picked up.

“It’s not a rumor, man. She’s real.”

“Bullshit. What’s she look like, then, huh?” Guy Two taunted.

“ _ Nobody _ knows what she looks like, because they all died in the war! It happened out west. A couple gangs duked it out, I heard it from a guy in the neutral zone. I dunno if anyone was left alive.”

“Maybe she died, too.”

“You think someone was dumb enough to kill her?”

“Wouldn’t put it past some of these idiots.”

With that, Buddy had made it to the end of the ridge, and stepped onto a much sturdier slab of rock. She peered down over the edge, trying to see if there was a way to take them by surprise, as she had before. They were quite a few feet down, facing each other across a fire pit. She would have to clamber down multiple levels of stone to reach them.

“It’s n-not worth it,” said Rando quietly, echoing her thoughts.

“Guess not,” she said. “Can we get past them?”

He gestured up ahead, where the craggy rocks began to flatten out into smoother boulders, but still stood high above them, almost like walls, but with enough gaps between the stone that it wasn’t too dark. “We can go through there,” he said.

Buddy nodded and led the way. The voices of the men faded without any indication they had seen either of them, after which the travellers picked up the pace.

Minutes of travel passed until the “walls” flattened out and they walked out onto a much flatter terrain. “I dunno how anybody can live around here,” Buddy commented. “It’s a bunch of work to just walk around.”

They rounded a corner and stopped. A man was ahead of them, lying awkwardly on the ground, surrounded by bottles. There was a little table and a banner near him.

“He’s p-probably not a threat,” Rando said. “We can -”

“Can’t risk it,” Buddy cut him off. “I’ll sneak up on him. Watch my back.”

Without waiting for a response, she dropped her bag and crept forward, keeping low to the ground. Suddenly her foot slipped and she nearly fell down a gap in the rock, leaning backwards in order not to fall, and she let out an involuntary noise of shock. Too late, she clapped her free hand over her mouth.

The man snuffled but did nothing.

She calmed, her shoulders relaxing, and tried to analyze the gap. It was about three feet wide, with no potential bridge in sight, and when she peered down, she didn’t see the ground.

She backed up and then, not bothering with staying quiet, sprinted to the edge of the rock. Heart in her mouth, she jumped, and was in the air for a terrifying second before she landed heavily on the other side.

The man pushed himself up on his hands. “Whuh? Huh?” he mumbled. “Wha’s…”

Before he could turn around, Buddy stabbed him through the neck. He coughed out blood, then slumped over, lifeless.

Buddy turned around and gave a thumbs-up to Rando, who jogged over to the edge. “That w-was dangerous,” he said.

“So is  _ all  _ of this,” said Buddy. “Toss our stuff over, then jump, it’s not hard.”

Both of their bags landed with a  _ thump _ not far from her, and then Rando cleared the gap. Buddy turned to check out the bottles, hoping a few would be empty so she could use them as weapons in a pinch, and put the empty ones in her pack. Others were half-empty, but none were full.

“T-take the h-half full ones too,” Rando said. “...if they have caps.” He was rifling through the dead man’s pockets.

“Why?” Buddy asked, as she picked a bottle up that had about three inches of alcohol in it. She stuck her nose in the bottleneck and inhaled deeply, then recoiled in disgust, grabbing at her face. “ _ Gross!  _ What the hell is  _ that?” _

Rando laughed. His laughter was rare and always quiet, but she heard it. She had always liked making people laugh, but didn’t often have the chance to.

“That’s w-what alcohol smells like. I t-told you you wouldn’t like it,” Rando said.

“Then why does everyone drink it?” Buddy demanded, hunting for caps. “I mean, I know it gets you drunk…which makes you act differently...”

“That’s ab-bout it,” Rando said. “In my opinion, anyw-way.”

After they gathered what was salvageable - Rando had also torn down the banner and stuffed it in his pack, and Buddy didn’t bother to ask why - they had to clamber and hoist themselves up a cliff face. Someone with brains had left some ropes, so it was moderately easier, but Buddy still grumbled with annoyance as she hauled herself onto rock slab after rock slab.

She was about to grab onto another rope when she heard someone scuffling around on one of the upper levels. There looked to be another way past him, but Buddy felt the itch of withdrawal beginning at the back of her throat, and wondered if this guy had any Joy. It was worth finding out.

She glanced at Rando. “Are you strong enough to hold me up?” she asked.

“...maybe?” He tilted his head.

“Well, we’ll find out. I don’t wanna step on your hands, though, that’d hurt.”

“You c-can get on my shoulders,” Rando said.

Thankfully, he was strong enough for her to sit on his shoulders, her legs and arms barely avoiding the protruding spikes on his armor. “Why even have these?” she muttered to herself. To Rando, she said, “Okay, move over there, where I was standing.”

Now at least six extra feet above the ground, Buddy was high enough to see that the man was just looking in the opposite direction, not holding any weapon.  _ Good, that makes this easier. _

“Lemme stand up,” she whispered, and Rando shifted and she adjusted until she was standing on his shoulders. He didn’t have to deal with that for very long, as she then jumped onto the stone, alerting the man.

“Wh - how the hell did you get here, boy?” the man demanded, approaching her. “You’ll let the monsters in, you idiot!”

Buddy drew her sword. “The mutants are dead,” she said, not bothering to disguise her voice, and attacked.

It wasn’t an interesting fight, and though Rando had scrambled up onto the stone after her, she hadn’t needed his help. Blood spattered the rock face and stained Buddy’s sword, which she wiped on the dead man’s pants. “I’m getting pretty good at this,” she remarked proudly. “Will you check his pockets? I need a drink.” She fished around in her backpack for some water.

Rando searched the dead man and found some magazine pages that he quickly stuffed away. _One day I’ll see them,_ Buddy thought, annoyed. _What could be so bad that he’d hide it from me?_ _Maybe it’s got stuff about reproduction in it. But I know about that now..._

“Any Joy?” she asked abruptly.

“No,” Rando said.

“You sure?”

“Yes. S-search for yourself, if you want,” he said, and sat down a few feet away from her.

“I’ll trust you,” said Buddy, taking a long drink of water. “So...have you met this Vega guy?”

“Y-years ago, m-maybe,” Rando said. “S-some allegiances have changed...leaders die, territories ch-change hands...I d-don’t think he was a leader back then.”

“Do gangs just scatter when leaders die, or do they pick a new one?”

“It d-depends,” Rando said. “The ones I knew p-picked new leaders. But some dissolved.”

“Would yours dissolve if you died?”

“I d-don’t know,” he said. “I d-don’t know if there’s enough of them left f-for it to matter.”

Buddy crossed her legs, feeling awkward. “Um...I’m sorry. That they all died.”

“It wasn’t -”

“I know it wasn’t my fault, I didn’t ask for it, but it did happen because of me,” she said. “And...you were probably friends with some of them. And they’re all dead now. I’ve never had a friend, but it probably feels really shitty to lose them. And Brad killed them…” She shook her head. “I don’t want to believe it. But I can.”

“He d-didn’t kill all of them,” Rando said. “A lot of them, yes. B-but some died b-because we were fighting with other gangs.”

“Oh. Did that happen a lot?”

“On occasion. M-more so once you were k-kidnapped...sorry about that, b-by the way. I had v-very little control over that situation.” He sighed. “Our g-group grew so much, s-sometimes I had no idea what was g-going on. I tried to appoint other l-leaders...b-but they all kept acting on their own.”

“So they weren’t doing what you told them to do?”

“Some of them did what th-they wanted to do, not the right thing to do.”

“Who are you to decide what the right thing to do is?” Buddy countered.

He looked at the ground. After a few seconds pause, he said, “You have a lot of interesting th-things to say.”

That got her to perk up. “Well, thanks,” she said, pleased. “I try. It’s nice to not just be brushed off. Whenever I tried to ask  _ Brad _ stuff, he always just said he’d tell me when I was older. And then I’d get older, and I’d ask again, and he’d just say that again. When I was younger, we had real conversations sometimes...but then he just...I dunno.” She kicked a rock, her good mood gone. “Maybe he was always like that, and I just didn’t notice ‘cause I was real little, but I swear he got...worse. We fought, and he’d drink, and take Joy, and just...not talk to me or look at me. Like he couldn’t.”

She shook her head roughly. She wasn’t used to being able to say whatever she wanted, but she didn’t want to talk about her previous life too much. Everyone in it was dead, including the little girl she used to be. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to say all that. It doesn’t matter.”

“It m-matters,” Rando said. “You matter.”

She waved it off. “Yeah, yeah, last girl, all that shit -”

“No, Buddy,” Rando interrupted. “ _ You _ matter. B-because you’re...you.”

She was silent for a little while, looking off into the distance. Her hair blew in the wind and she tucked it behind her ears. She glanced at Rando out of the corner of her eye. He had turned away from her and was examining a cut on his arm.

Emotion was welling in her.  _ Why now? _ she asked herself with some irritation. It wasn’t like he had said anything that wasn’t true. It was just something she hadn’t heard in a long time.

“Thanks,” she said stiffly, pushing down whatever was stuck in her throat. “We should keep moving. There can’t be much more of these cliffs.”

Rando just nodded and followed her. She rolled her shoulders, cracked her back and stretched. “Let’s get this fuckin’ thing over with, huh?” she said with bravado, a little louder than perhaps recommended.

But the best way to stop any unwanted emotion was to focus on what she was about to do, what she had done the day before. Things were sometimes a surreal blur when she was jacked up on Joy, just pinpricks of violence, but she had been coming down from a high when she killed Lardy, and she remembered it so vividly. She recalled every slash of her sword, every movement of her body. She recalled the moment where Lardy pointed his gun in Rando’s face and, for one terrifying instant, she had felt something she had promised herself she would never feel again - she felt  _ scared.  _ It was embarrassing.

The seconds after that were fuzzy, rushing Lardy with no plan of action, just determined to strike, to draw blood, to kill. But the most thrilling part, the part that made her heart skip and put a grim smile on her face, was the crunch of his nose when she snapped it, the cracks of his skull when she broke it. The Joy coursing through her veins told her it was what he deserved, and she knew it was true, anger leaving her body with every stomp onto his head. 

Then Rando had snapped her out of it, told her to stop. And in that moment, she was so furious, so lost in her rage, that she could have attacked him, too. But something in his voice had given her pause. Joy faded, logic came back, and she gave her victim a merciful death. It was probably the right thing to do. Maybe Rando really did know something about what ‘the right thing to do’ tended to be.

“Buddy.” Rando’s voice broke into her thoughts. “We’re here.”

The jagged cliffs and hills had given way to flatter ground, where a large steel warehouse-style building loomed over them. Someone had spray-painted  _ VEGA  _ above the door, but Buddy could see a faded logo beneath, though she couldn’t tell what it was.

Her hand clenched around her sword. “Do you think it’s gonna be just him in there?”

“I d-don’t know. M-maybe. B-but he might have guards. Are you ready?” Rando asked.

“Yeah. Well...hang on.” She dropped her bag and reached for her water bottle. If there was a time to take Joy, it was now, moments before a battle. She swallowed a pill with a gulp of water, wiped her mouth, and put the bottle back. “Okay. Now I am.”

She squinted at the strong metal doors. “Um...are you sure we’ll be able to open those?”

In response, Rando grabbed the handle of the left door and pulled; it creaked loudly, but opened with no resistance. “St-stay behind me,” he said.

Buddy nodded and followed him inside.

The room they faced was large and well-lit, the sun shining in through the windows. It had an odd half-second floor with some metal walls and crates, and a few ladders linking it to the bottom floor. But, most importantly, it was occupied. Two tall men stared them down as they stepped over the threshold. Buddy lifted her head defiantly, but didn’t take off her mask, not yet.

“So!” A voice came from the second floor. “You’re the one who blew up our barrier, aren’t you? You’re the one killing my men? Don’t tell me - you’re the reason for the shipment delays too, aren’t you?”

Buddy said nothing; the Joy was starting to take effect, and she looked around the room, searching for her victim, preparing to strike. Hopefully they could take care of the guards quickly. Her hands itched to fight, to kill.

A man with obnoxiously pastel pink hair flounced out from behind one of the metal walls. “Well, that won’t fly here, boy! I try to be kind to outsiders...but not little rapscallions like you.” He squinted at them. “Wait. Rando? And...a mini Rando? There’s a surprise. I thought your whole shtick was peacekeeping, and now you’re going on a murder spree? Guess everything gets old after a while -”

“Are you Vega Van Dam?” Buddy cut him off. She was tapping her foot aggressively on the floor.

“I am!” he said rather proudly. “So, not to be rude” - he clasped his hands together - “but you  _ did _ kill quite a few of my boys, and we don’t tolerate that around here.” He snapped his fingers. After a couple seconds of silence, he snapped them again. Then again.

“Excuse me!” he called down to the guards. “ _ Hello?  _ Anybody home?”

“We’re not responding to  _ snapping,  _ boss,” one of them grunted.

“Well, whatever, just attack them!” Vega waved his hand dismissively.

Buddy dropped her things, took off her mask and tossed it aside, glaring at the approaching guards. They stumbled to a stop in front of her, shocked.

“The girl!” Vega cried out, but Buddy had taken advantage of the pause and lunged forward, stabbing one guard in the gut. She tore the sword out and slashed across the stomach of the second guard. Despite the wounds, the one on the right punched her in the shoulder and she nearly fell over, catching herself with her hand at the last second. The guard loomed over her and she bared her teeth, scrabbling for her sword. Before he could attack, a shadow fell over Buddy and there was a loud  _ crack -  _ Rando had jumped over and punched him square in the face.

His attack gave Buddy enough time to get to her feet, and she narrowly avoided another punch from the other guard. He grabbed her right arm, trying to knock her sword loose, but she twisted her sword and sliced his arm open. Still, his other hand reached for her throat.

“Don’t  _ kill _ her, you fool!” Vega called from above. “Knock her unconscious if you must, but don’t seriously  _ harm  _ her, then what use will she be?”

His words sent a new rush of rage through her, and as the guard’s grip loosened, she yanked her arm out of his grasp and ducked, then stabbed him hard in the knee, aiming beneath the bone and cutting the tendon. The guard buckled, and she ducked around him, then stabbed his other knee through the back. He collapsed to the ground.

She whirled around. Rando was battling the other guard, and while the guard’s punches had a lot of weight behind them, Rando had skill, and the ability to adapt his attacks depending on the enemy. He avoided a wild swing by dodging left, then smacked his hands hard on the guard’s ears, discombobulating him. As the guard staggered, Rando elbowed him in the stomach, then kicked the same spot. He ended the fight with a punch directly to the underside of the guard’s jaw, and Buddy grimaced at the sound of bone breaking. The guard fell onto his back, and Rando ceased his attack, lowering his hands.

“What the hell are you doing?” Buddy demanded. “Kill him!”

Rando turned to her and called, “Look out!”

The other guard was reaching for her leg in a last ditch attempt, his own legs unusable, and Buddy neatly dodged his arm. She curled her lip. “Good try,” she sneered, and stabbed him in the arm. She yanked it out, then - Joy whispering ideas in her ear, blood pounding at the edge of her vision - took her sword and slashed a gruesome line from his neck to his stomach, tearing into bones and organs and flesh, laying it bare. The scent of blood filled her nostrils and they flared.

Somewhere beyond her, she heard Rando fighting again. She looked up from her handiwork and saw that the guard had gotten back to his feet.

“Why didn’t you just  _ kill him?”  _ Buddy muttered, and hurried over. While the guard was preoccupied, she slid down and cut his ankles, and he collapsed. As Rando paused,  _ again, _ she sliced through the guard’s stomach, then stabbed him in the chest.

She glared at Rando, her chest heaving. “We could’ve avoided that if you’d just  _ killed him,  _ idiot!” she spat. “You could’ve gotten hurt!”

He said nothing, just turned his gaze from her to Vega.

“Well, that’s certainly a development,” Vega said mildly. Buddy pivoted on her right foot to see him looking at them with a raised eyebrow and no obvious signs of fear. “You’ve got some spirit to you, girlie. I’m mostly just surprised by your company. I get you want the girl, Rando, but are you really gonna pal around with a li’l murderer?”

“Shut up!” Buddy snarled, glancing at her silent companion. “Are you gonna face me yourself, or are you a pussy?”

“Well, you - hm, no, I won’t make that joke in front of you.” Vega reached behind him and pulled out a large shotgun. “Now, hold still so I don’t hit your body.” He loaded it.

“Fuck you!” Buddy shouted, and ducked as the gun went off, the bullet lodging itself in the wall. “You’re too much of a coward to go hand-to-hand?” she taunted.

“No, I’m smarter than that,” Vega replied, and he reloaded. “I said, hold still.”

Buddy darted behind a crate and the bullet hit the wood, shot through it, shattered the crate, and whistled a few inches past her ear.

As she abandoned her ruined shield, she spotted Rando trying to get to one of the ladders. If he could get up to Vega, maybe they could win this. But dodging his bullets forever wasn’t going to get them anywhere.

Vega fired again, this time aiming at her feet, and she jumped away. “You’re making this much more difficult than it needs to be,” he said airily. “Do you know what karma is, dear? It’s when the universe pays you back for what you’ve done. All your killing today does  _ not _ bode well for your karma.”

“I don’t give a shit,” she said. “Are you gonna come down here and fight me, or keep wasting bullets?” She kept her eyes on him, but saw Rando start climbing one of the ladders out of the corner of her eye, trying to make as little noise as possible.

“You have a point,” Vega mused. “Bullets aren’t free, you know. And with these shipment delays - how  _ did _ you pull that off? I suppose I don’t begrudge the boys for going after you instead of doing their duty -”

The ladder creaked. Without skipping a beat, Vega turned the gun on Rando. “Oh, so clever, so clever! Get me distracted talking to the little spitfire, then sneak up on me? You’ve really fallen so low!” He loaded the gun. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

Panic bubbled in Buddy’s chest, her heart pounding in overdrive thanks to Joy and this new, annoying, almost primal fear. She cast a glance at the ground - her bag was only a few feet from her, an empty bottle visible within it.

She grabbed it, let out a yell, and chucked it at Vega with all of her strength. It didn’t hit him, but landed on the floor loudly enough for him to jump and fire at the ceiling instead. Rando took that moment to climb up the rest of the ladder, then run over to Vega. Buddy threw another bottle, this one managing to hit his leg. With his attention split in two directions, Vega didn’t react fast enough when Rando grabbed his throat. “S-sorry about this,” Rando said, then said something Buddy couldn’t hear and punched Vega hard on the spine, sending him toppling over the edge of the overhang.

Buddy dashed over; it wasn’t enough of a fall to kill him on impact. As soon as he hit the ground, she stabbed him through the back, her blade clashing against the floor. She ripped the sword out, then stabbed him again, then again, then again, until she was sure she had hit enough vital organs to kill.

The duo stood, breathing heavily, and stared at their mutual handiwork. Rando descended down the ladder. “A lot cleaner,” Buddy said. “Thanks for that. And hey, I told’ja we should throw the bottles, yeah? Maybe you should listen to me more.”

Rando was quiet for a few seconds until he said, “You s-saved me again.”

“Yeah, and you’ve been saving my ass since we started this, don’t make it into a big deal,” Buddy grumbled, crossing her arms. “Who else is gonna punch guys so hard they fall over? Not me. But if you’d just  _ kill them _ when they’re down, you  _ wouldn’t _ need me to save you. Who gives a shit about these random idiots?” she demanded. “They’d kill  _ you. _ Don’t waste your compassion on people who don’t deserve it. We  _ need  _ to kill the guys we fight. Got it?”

His silence whenever she cast out her anger always made her uncomfortable, but she couldn’t figure out why. She wasn’t _wrong._ But the way he acted made her feel like she was. Maybe if she could see his face she would be able to tell how he really felt, but his mask made everything guesswork, and she had no experience with other people’s emotions. Even if he was disappointed in her, _it didn’t matter._ _Why should I care what he thinks?_ she thought defiantly, trying to logic her way out of her discomfort, an odd feeling in her gut. _He’s just some guy._

_ Some guy who’s putting his life on the line to help you,  _ some part of her pointed out.

_ That was his choice, _ she retorted.  _ I don’t owe him anything.  _ Still, she couldn’t help the weird guilt. Maybe she did care. She wasn’t supposed to, but she did.

“W-we should leave,” Rando said at last.

“Yup,” Buddy agreed, adding the steel back to her voice. “Let’s loot ‘em and get outta here. Oh, wait, we should check out some of these crates,” she added. “They might have supplies in them.”

As it turned out, one crate was full of dried rations, and they took as many as they could carry, though Buddy saw how Rando hesitated.  _ Why does he care about a whole different gang?  _ she thought, frustrated. She opened one crate that had fallen on its side only to yelp and nearly drown in a flood of cans. Once recovered, thanks to Rando pulling her out, she inspected a can to find out it was actually full of water. “Why put water in a can?” she asked.

Rando picked one up. “It’s c-carbonated,” he said, reading the label.

“What’s that mean?”

“It fizzes,” he said. “You’ll s-see when you open one.”

“So it’s not like normal water?”

“It’ll t-taste like normal water, I think...unless it’s f-flavored, but...I would’ve thought these w-would be all g-gone by now,” Rando said, his voice trailing off as he read the rest of the label.

“Well, regardless, if it’s water, we should take a ton,” Buddy said. “Er, but you can probably carry more than me.” She grimaced. “I can’t believe we have to walk back through all those fucking hills again.”

“Are you t-tired?” Rando asked.

“No!” she said quickly. “I’m fine.”

“It’s okay if you’re tired,” he said. “We haven’t eaten since this m-morning, we should take a rest...maybe somewhere outside, out of the w-way.”

“Alright, if you say so,” Buddy said, secretly a little relieved, and stretched, then swung her arms at her sides. “Let’s try some of this weird water.” Feeling uncharacteristically cheerful, victory still humming inside her chest, she grinned at her companion. “There’s a ton of cool stuff out here, huh? Things ain’t so bad.”

Rando let out one of his soft laughs, but she heard the sadness behind it and felt those pangs of discomfort again.  _ He chose this, _ she reminded herself.

“W-well, there’s some m-more you don’t know about,” he said. “Do you know what...c-coffee is?”

“Um...doesn’t it make you more awake?” Buddy asked, and the two headed out of the building, leaving the bodies behind. “And it’s like, made from leaves?”

“You’re th-thinking tea, but c-close,” Rando said. “No, c-coffee is made from beans…”

As Buddy listened, she felt the remaining Joy fade and allow something light into her chest, something good. For the first time in a long time, she felt...fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 「winning doesn't mean anything unless someone else loses. which means you're here to be the loser.」


	7. the guilty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another midnight update bc i'm a nightmare, idk if i'll be able to get a new chapter up next week bc school is kicking my a$$ and i'm running out of prewritten chapters, BUT, i will update asap, thank u for reading xoxoxoxo

“Wake up!” Buddy was saying, punching Dustin on the arm. “Get up, it’s sunrise. Let’s eat something and get outta here.”

“I’m...up,” he said, yawning, and sat up. Buddy threw things into her pack as he put his mask back on, then inspected their dead fire from the evening before.

“Can we restart the fire?” she asked, nudging some charcoal with the toe of her boot. “I wanna see what happens if we light some of the rations on fire. That’s how you cook stuff, right? I watched my uncles do it a few times.”

“I d-don’t recommend that,” Dustin said hastily.

She rolled her eyes. “You’re so boring. Next you’re gonna tell me not to eat lizards.”

“...you ate a lizard?”

“I didn’t eat it  _ raw! _ ” she said defensively. “They’re not  _ that _ bad. You want some water?” Without waiting for an answer, she tossed a bottle in his direction, and he caught it.

Once refreshed, they began to dismantle the little camp. Buddy, full of energy, was pacing around and looking in all directions, craning her head to try to see over the hills. “Where we goin’ today?” Buddy asked. “Can we go take a look at the list again?”

“S-sure, it’s n-not far from here,” said Dustin.

“Alright, lead the way, then.”

Buddy’s odd mood flip-flop from aggression to calm the day before seemed to have persisted, as she walked next to him with her shoulders relaxed and her grip loose around her sword. Dustin chose not to mention it out of fear of coming off as antagonistic.

She stopped abruptly, then sniffed. “You smell that?”

Dustin paused. “...it’s g-gasoline.”

“Gasoline?”

“It’s f-fuel. For vehicles. It’s also exp-p-plosive. And...don’t sniff too close to it.”

“Why?”

“You know how it f-felt when you smelled alcohol? It’s w-worse.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Oh. Okay. You don’t gotta tell me twice.”

They found the spilled gasoline a few feet away. Someone had punctured a barrel, and it had pooled around the barrel, not soaking into the earth.

Completely ignoring Dustin’s warning, Buddy trotted over and dropped her bag, then got on her hands and knees and knelt over it. Dustin hurried to her, saying, “Wh-what did I  _ just _ -“

“Is that  _ me?” _

She was frozen, staring down at her reflection. She reached out to touch the gasoline, then seemed to think better of it and kept her hands on the ground.

Dustin stopped next to her and looked down. He had seen his own (masked) reflection plenty of times; in armor, in water, in gasoline, in oil, in the metal of polished vehicles. Buddy had apparently not seen herself very much.

“...what’s going on with my eye?” she asked. He watched her touch her face. “Is that what...yours looks like? It’s...what Brad’s looked like…”

“It’s the m-mark of Joy,” Dustin said. “Everyone who t-takes it...has it.”

She dragged her bottom eyelid down, staring at her eye. The blue highlight was just a tiny dot, a small and subtle shine. Dustin remembered Brad’s eyes during their final battle, the blue of his irises overshadowed by the brilliance of the marks. They had glowed like the sun.

“B-Buddy? You okay?” he asked.

She blinked a few times and shook her head. “Yeah. Yeah. M’ fine. Sorry. Just haven’t seen myself in a while.” She let out a short, barking laugh. “I’m such a mess now. Not that it matters, I guess. Sorry. Let’s go.”

Dustin could tell she had been shaken, but she said nothing else until they got to the list. Someone else was there, a man with a pistol strapped to his waist who turned when he heard their footsteps.

“Whoa! What the hell?” the man demanded. “Holy - a girl!”

“Fuck, I don’t have  _ time  _ for this!” Buddy spat, and rushed forward, her sword out. The man couldn’t get to his pistol before one slash of her sword tore him open from shoulder to hip, and he collapsed.

She glared down at him for a few seconds, then turned to the list. “Hey, check that out,” she said, gesturing at it.

Someone had drawn lines through the names of the people Buddy had killed. The same color of red, but bright and fresh. Blood, Dustin assumed. 

“So  _ somebody _ knows I’ve been getting rid of them,” said Buddy, sounding smug. “Good. Anyway, I guess I’m killing Mister Beautiful next,” she said, pointing at the lowest uncrossed name. “You know anything about him, Rando?”

Dustin had been dreading this. “Y-yes. He’s the leader of a g-group of pacifists. They live s-south of here.”

“Pacifists?” Buddy echoed.

“They don’t b-believe in f-fighting. They are completely p-peaceful,” Dustin said. “They would n-never think of hurting you, or m-me, or anyone.”

Buddy’s hand just clenched around her sword and she curled her lip. “They  _ were  _ peaceful, you mean. If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that shit changes. Who knows how they’d all react to me? I’m killing him, and I’ll kill any one of them who gets in my way.”

The wounded man let out a gurgled cry. “ _ Ugh,  _ just shut up,” Buddy said distastefully, and stabbed him in the throat, cutting off any further noise. “Anyway,” she continued, turning back to Dustin, “let’s go get him. Is it far?”

He was tempted to lie, to tell her Mister Beautiful was days and days of travel away in hopes that she wouldn’t bother, but he couldn’t. “W-we should get there b-by tomorrow morning if we l-leave now,” he said. Guilt on guilt, layers of despair.

“Good.” Buddy rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck. “Maybe we can get some practice in on some chumps before we get to him. Hey, you can teach me some moves!” She mimed throwing some punches and tried to do a spin-kick, but almost fell over.

Dustin suppressed a laugh. He experienced so much mood whiplash with her; one minute she’d be a brutal, angry killer, the next she’d make a joke or smile and act like a normal girl. She’d blow up at him, then treat him like a friend. He could sympathize - growing up the way she did must have left her emotionally stunted and bad at socializing - but was constantly taken aback by her behavior.

“Anything else we need to take care of before we go?” Buddy asked, bouncing from foot to foot. “I don’t wanna travel at night.”

“N-no, nothing. We can go.”

Unlike the crags and cliffs of the day before, their travels began on a flat stretch of sunbaked earth covered in cracks, the occasional clump of plants poking through, some areas more fertile than others. A few burnt trees were scattered across the landscape, just spikes of charcoal standing out against the clear sky.

Buddy pointed at one. “How’d all these trees burn?”

“People set a l-lot of f-fires back in the day,” Dustin said. “But, f-fires also start from lightning -”

“I know that.”

“- so that m-might be how these burned down. Usually b-burns allow for new p-plant growth, but...the plants never g-grew back in some places,” Dustin said.

“Why?”

“The c-climate has changed. D-days have been longer since the F-Flash, so there’s m-more sunlight, and it g-gets hotter and rains less, which can hinder g-growth,” Dustin explained.

“Oh. How’d you learn all this stuff?” Buddy asked.

“They t-taught it in school,” Dustin said. “You know what th-that is, right?”

“Yeah, it’s where kids used to go to learn stuff,” Buddy said. “Brad said kids had to go to school from when they were five to when they were eighteen, but he started teaching me stuff when I was real little. I learned to read when I was pretty young...he taught me a bunch of math too. Do you know how to do algebra?  _ I _ do.”

It was always funny when she boasted. “Y-yes, I learned algebra in high sc-school,” Dustin said. “I was n-never very good at it, though. M-math wasn’t m-my best subject.”

“What was?” Buddy asked.

“English, m-mostly,” Dustin said.

She snort-laughed. “You mean, the language we’re speaking? Yeah, I’d  _ hope _ you were good at it.”

He laughed. “N-not exactly. English c-class was about how to w-write good essays, learning w-where words come from, studying b-books, th-things like that.”

“Oh. Did you graduate? Brad said he didn’t,” Buddy said. “But whenever I asked him why he just didn’t answer me.”

“I did,” said Dustin. “I w-was going to g-go to college, too.”

“College comes after high school, right?”

“Y-yes, b-but I took some time off to work.”

“Why didn’t you go?”

“The F-Flash happened right after I m-moved,” Dustin said. “I wish I c-could’ve, but...n-now we’re here.”

He had always wondered what it would have been like to actually  _ go  _ to college. He had attended a total of four classes before everything collapsed. The boys he had been renting a house with had become the first members of his gang, and they had travelled together to the territory they claimed. They were dead now, from battle and disease and suicide. He was the only one left.

The little party took a break after a while, settling down by a hill to rest. As Dustin inspected some old wounds he was worried about, he saw Buddy take something out of her pack. It looked to be a book of some kind. She fished around in her pack once more and took out a pencil. He didn’t say anything, just watched her draw out of the corner of his eye. She was staring off into the distance, where they had come from, where some of the cliffs and rock formations were still visible.

Eventually, he asked, “W-what’re you doing?”

Buddy nearly jumped. “Oh, uh, just drawing.” She set down her pencil and tossed him the sketchbook. “I’m not that great, I don’t think, but it’s fun to do when I’m bored.”

Dustin looked down at her latest artwork. Nothing museum worthy, as he figured, but she had a surprisingly good grasp on shading and texture. She had used her finger to smudge the shadows in the distance and the little flicks of grass stood out against the ground.

“Th-this is really g-good,” he said. “Who t-taught you to draw?”

“Thanks,” she said, one corner of her mouth turning up. “Nobody taught me, I just kinda picked it up. I had to sit inside all day for thirteen years, and Brad n’ my uncles got sick of me bugging them, so he got this for me. You can look through the rest of it too, if you want.”

Dustin flipped through the sketchbook, starting at the first page. She had started with basic sketches of furniture that must have been in her old home - her bed, a ladder, a table, a chair, a cupboard, a door. As he progressed, the drawings got more detailed. Interspersed between the still lifes were angry scribbles, eyes, sloppy drawings of humans screaming. He quickly turned those pages over, feeling like he was intruding on something by looking at them. There were even a few drawings of Brad and her uncles, and one of herself. The girl in the drawing - her calm hair, both of her eyes visible, her forlorn expression - didn’t resemble her current self at all.

He handed the book back to her. “You’ve g-got a lot of skill,” he said. “I t-tried to draw too, f-for a while, b-but I wasn’t any good at it.”

Buddy shrugged. “I mean, I wasn’t good at it either, at first. It just takes a lot of practice. You had more shit to do, you couldn’t afford to spend all day drawing chairs or whatever.” She put her things back in her pack. “C’mon, we should keep moving.”

Resuming the trek, they moved through the gently sloping hills. Buddy stopped briefly to complain of withdrawal symptoms and take a Joy pill. The drug gave her a new burst of energy and she frequently would jog ahead, return to Dustin, say a few things, then jog around again. She was tense, twitching at every noise, and when they overheard two men talking over a ridge, she said nothing, just ran and jumped and disappeared over the edge. Dustin heard sounds of violence, but no screams.

He waited for her, not wanting to see the aftermath, but he jumped when she cried out, and sprinted over.

“B-Buddy! Are you okay? Wh-what -”

She turned to him with a smug look of victory on her face as she held up a fistful of magazine pages. “I found  _ these!  _ And you can’t keep me from looking at them, ‘cause  _ I  _ got ‘em!” she crowed, planting her foot on one of the dead bodies.

Dustin reached forward and snatched them out of her hand. “No.”

“Come  _ on!”  _ she groaned, grabbing at thin air, but he held them high above her head and out of her reach, which was very easy - she was  _ maybe _ five feet tall, and he had passed six feet when he was seventeen. “Don’t be a dick, that’s not fair!” she complained, scowling at him. “You’re askin’ for some slashed ankles.”

He hesitated, then said, “I’ll sh-show them to you if you l-let me give you some c-context.”

“Context for  _ what?” _

“For wh-what they are and why w-we use them to b-buy things.”

She huffed. “Fine. One guy had some Joy, so I’m satisfied. Let’s go.”

They resumed their journey, Buddy trotting next to Dustin and keeping pace with him. She watched him impatiently as he mentally fumbled for how to explain pornography to a thirteen-year-old girl who learned what sex was two weeks ago. “Okay...so...you know how the r-reproductive system works,” he said delicately.

“Uh-huh,” she said. “S’ how babies are made. Yup.”

“R-right...so...the... _ process... _ is...enjoyable f-for adults,” said Dustin. He was relieved his face was hidden, as he was speaking through a grimace. “It can be...f-fun.”

“Okay…”

“And, um...men like l-looking at...naked women.”

“Okay.”

“So, that’s what’s in the m-magazines,” Dustin said. “N-naked women, or...naked women w-with men. Or other w-women. Doing the...process.”

He wanted to crawl into a hole and die there.

“What?  _ That’s _ all?” Buddy demanded, annoyed. “For fuck’s sake, the way you were acting I thought it was gonna be way worse than that!” Buddy threw up her arms in exasperation. “Why are you and everybody else so fucking  _ cagey  _ about everything?...did I use that word right?”

“Yes, y -”

“Cool, anyway, so I can see them now?”

“You w- _ want  _ to see naked women?” Dustin asked, tilting his head.

“Well, the only one I’ve ever seen is myself,” she retorted, “so it’d be nice to know I’m not a freak of nature or something!”

She had a point. Still grimacing under his mask, Dustin willed himself to look through the pages she had just looted. To his relief, they were all pretty tame, with only two pages actually containing porn. The others were mostly just pictures of naked women or women in lingerie. He tried to find one that was the least bad, then handed it to her.

She snatched it and held it close to her face, her eyes scanning it, and she came to a stop. “...so we’ve all got those? Okay… _ damn, _ they can get that big?...it can look like  _ that?!”  _ She held up the page and gestured at one of the photos. “Is this for real?”

Dustin didn’t look at it, just nodded a few times, facing forward. He had been through some turbulent, challenging times in his life, but this was easily one of the worst. He would take another ten fights with Brad over explaining porn to his little sister.

“Huh,” Buddy said, and looked over the page for a second longer before stuffing it into her pocket. “Well, it’s kinda nice to feel more normal.  _ Everybody _ looks like you...er, kind of. But nobody around looks like me.”

He felt a pang of sympathy. “It m-must be hard to n-not be able to relate to anyb-body in that way,” he said.

“It’s just  _ weird,  _ y’know? Humans can end up in like, two ways, and one of those ways is just  _ gone. _ It’s  _ just  _ me.” She gestured at herself. “So remembering that there used to be people like me...it’s kinda sad, ‘cause I don’t have that kind of...connection, but it’s also good to know that they really  _ did _ exist once.” Buddy shrugged. “I dunno. S’ just a thought.”

He nodded again. “I’m s-sorry for keeping it from you,” he said. “I just d-didn’t know how to explain things.”

“Well, you did a decent job. Thanks. Did  _ you _ ever get that stuff explained to you by someone?” Buddy asked, hurrying up and walking next to him again. “Like, your parents?”

Guilt left goosebumps on his arms; he still wasn’t ready to tell her. “No. N-nobody explained it...I l-learned it on my own.”

“Oh. Did you have, um...a girlfriend? That’s what they’re called, right? When you’re in a relationship with a girl?”

“Yes, that’s wh-what it’s called,” he said, “but, um, no.”

“Oh. Why not? Come to think of it, why didn’t you go batshit over a girl showing up the way other guys did?” Buddy asked, raising an eyebrow.

That was a tough question to answer.  _ Well, you’re my sister, _ wasn’t an option yet. He settled for a half-truth. “I d-don’t...like...women, exactly.”

“What? Rude.”

“N-no, that’s - no,” he said hastily. “I don’t like women...the w-way that other m-men do. The way they th-think of you...I don’t think that w-way about women.”

“Oh. Why not?”

He shrugged. “I was b-born this way.”

“Huh. Well, I guess it’s pretty convenient now, huh?” Buddy commented. She flashed him a grin. “And convenient for me, too, having a non-creepy guy for a f - companion.” She paused, then cleared her throat. “Well, I’m gonna run ahead, take my bag,” she said. She took it off and shoved it into Dustin’s arms, then darted off with her sword.

The intense awkwardness he had felt moments ago was fading to a light glow of hope, a gentle warmth in his chest. 

_ She was going to say ‘friend’. _

Suddenly invigorated, Dustin jogged after her as the sun continued on its slow path across the sky.

The long day wore on. Buddy, still jacked up on Joy, kept asking Dustin questions about life, pre- and post-Flash. He was relieved that she had dropped the topics he was extremely uncomfortable with, but he wasn’t exactly jazzed to be talking about his life, either. It hadn’t been anything special before the Flash, and Buddy talking so excitedly about the most violent, bloody parts of his life after the Flash was almost painful.

“So what was the worst fight you’ve ever been in?” she asked, her eye gleaming. He saw her hand clench around her sword as she walked backwards in front of him.

“I d-don’t know. There were a lot.”

“Well, tell me about one of ‘em, then.”

“I was c-called in to settle a t-territory dispute a while back...it g-got...messy.”

“Why?”

“The other g-gang was encroaching on m-my land and had k-killed some of my men. I w-wanted to give them a chance to surrender p-peacefully and return to their own t-territory. They...refused. I knew m-more people would die if I didn’t t-take care of it…so I s-stepped in.”

“Did you kill them?” Buddy asked.

“I h-had no other ch-choice,” Dustin said, the same remorseful justification he had used back then. “They w-wouldn’t hear m-my side...they w-wouldn’t listen or t-try to understand why we n-needed that land. I did all I c-could to p-prevent it...but I k-killed the leader...and I k-killed his closest men, too.”

“ _ Awesome,” _ said Buddy, baring her teeth in a smile. “And that got them to fuck off?”

“The g-gang dissolved...some of the m-men joined mine. Others scattered. My men wanted to claim their old land...so w-we did.”

“Do you miss it?” Buddy asked. “Being a leader, I mean.”

“I d-don’t think it’s b-been long enough for me to miss it,” Dustin said. It had only been two weeks at most since the battle where most of his army was slaughtered, and he had been asleep for a good chunk of that time. “S-sometimes this d-doesn’t feel real...it feels like I’ll w-wake up and things will be like they used to. And s-sometimes I have d-dreams that things are normal, that I’m j-just a normal man living in a w-world that doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Is that what you want?”

Dustin glanced at her. She had stopped walking backwards and was now trotting at his side, a few feet ahead of him, her hands in the pockets of her sweatpants. She was looking around the landscape and not at him.

What he wanted was the same things he had wanted since he was a seven-year-old staring out the window of his foster home in the middle of the night. He wanted things to be okay. He wanted to be happy. He wanted a real family.

He watched Buddy scratch her head, push some of her messy black-brown hair back from her face, and stretch. At least he now had  _ one  _ of the above, sort of.

Buddy didn’t wait for an answer, just said, “I guess things must kinda suck compared to how it used to be before the Flash. Actual society and stuff instead of always fighting for your lives and territory and to keep people off your ass. I feel bad for you,” she said, very matter-of-factly. “I grew up with this shit, it’s all I know. But you got to have something different, and then it was gone, and now we’ve just got this, just killing people in order to survive.”

“Yes...but it d-doesn’t have to be like this,” Dustin said, suddenly confident in his beliefs, in his ability to reach her, after all they had talked about that day. “N-not now that we have each other. W-we don’t have to fight, and kill, and do all of this, w-we can just end this, we can leave -”

“No. Stop,” Buddy cut him off, and she stopped. Her face had fallen and her eyebrows furrowed as she glared at him. “Why do you always bring it back to this? I’m not fucking giving up! Every time I try to have a fucking conversation with you, you ruin it! Just - just stop!” she shouted.

Dustin backed away and she ran on ahead, but didn’t leave his sight. It stung, but she was right. He worried about pushing her away, he worried that he would no longer have the strength to kill with her. Every day, he worried that the tenuous connection between them would snap.

_ Maybe we do just need to kill them all, _ he thought bleakly.  _ Maybe that’s the only way she’ll stop acting like this… _

Despite her anger, she had waited for him at the foot of a large mesa. The setting sun sent her shadow stretching down to reach his own.

“Is this a decent spot for camp?” she asked, her voice gruff. “Uh, at the top of the mesa, I mean.”

“Yes, w-we can rest here,” Dustin said. “I c-can keep watch first,” he offered, a conciliatory gesture.

She looked at him, her eyes still narrowed in anger, and nodded. “Okay.” She chewed on her lip. “You know...you can go. You don’t have to stay with me. You don’t have to do this with me.”

“Yes, I do,” he said.

They were both quiet as they clambered up onto the mesa, where they gathered dried grass and twigs in the last light of the sun. Buddy hauled a few rocks and arranged them in a circle, and they dropped the materials in. In another gesture, Dustin handed her the lighter, and she looked at him, her eyebrows raised.

“You’re gonna let me do it?” she asked. He could tell she was trying not to seem  _ too _ excited.

_ She’s thirteen, _ he remembered again, sadness and grief swallowing his heart, grief for the normal life she could’ve, should’ve had. “You’ve s-seen me do it enough t-times,” he said. “Just b-be careful.”

“I will,” she said, and knelt down to light the fire. She clicked the lighter and no flame appeared. She scowled and tried again, this time with more success. She held the flame to the dried grass and watched, fire flickering in her eyes, as the flames devoured it. She backed away and handed the lighter back to Dustin. “Thanks,” she said. “And, uh…” she trailed off, then kicked a rock. “Sorry,” she muttered, almost too quiet to hear.

“N-no, I’m sorry,” Dustin said. “I shouldn’t...you t-told me not to t-try to change your mind.”

“But you keep trying.” Buddy folded her arms. “Brad tried to change my mind, too. He tried to tell me I was better off stuck underground. That I wasn’t strong enough to defend myself.”

There was a threat in her words -  _ and he is not in my life anymore. _

“That’s n-not what I’m saying,” Dustin said. “You  _ are  _ strong...strong enough to f-fight off anyone who ch-challenges you.”

This seemed to please her; she relaxed her stance and looked less murder-y.

“B-but that isn’t the only t-type of strength,” Dustin continued. “It t-took me a long time to learn...there is strength in st-standing up for your own b-beliefs. I agreed not to argue w-with you...but I didn’t p-promise to change  _ my _ mind.”

Buddy was quiet for a few moments, then looked back at him. Her annoyance from earlier was replaced with a kind of begrudging respect.

“Fine,” she said. “But if you can’t work with me, I won’t...hold it against you. If this goes so against what you believe, I can’t force you to stay.” She let out a short laugh. “I don’t know why you  _ want _ to stick around. I can take care of myself, as you’ve seen.”

“P-people are stronger together,” Dustin said, “and I w-won’t leave you.”

“But  _ why? _ ”

“It’s like I t-told you. You are the only one who can ch-change the world. It’s all in your p-power, Buddy. But it’s a b-burden.”

She stared into the fire and sat in silence again. The last of the sun set below the horizon and they were left in the light of the stars and the flames.

Eventually, she said, “When Sticky first told me about...what it meant, being a girl, it felt like everything finally made sense. And I felt so powerful. For the first time in my life, I was in control of something. But then I realized what it meant. I have power, but they want to take it from me. They want to take away my free will. Even the ‘nice’ ones. Even you.”

“I’m not -“

“Maybe you don’t  _ now, _ but you have,” she said. “You can’t say that you haven’t wanted to control my actions at all since you found out about me.”

“I sup-p-pose not,” Dustin conceded, feeling guilty. “B-but...it was about k-keeping you safe.”

“I don’t  _ want _ to be safe!” she snapped. “I want to be  _ free!” _

Silence. The fire crackled and popped.

“One d-day, you will be both,” Dustin said.

She glanced over at him, then nodded. “You’re right.” Her eyebrows furrowed, her mouth in a flat line. “To be safe  _ and  _ free, they all need to die. No matter what you say, no matter what you do, no matter how many times you - you look at me when I’m angry and you don’t say anything and I feel like you’re disappointed in me, you’re  _ not _ going to change my mind!  _ Stop. Trying.” _

“Okay,” Dustin agreed wearily. “I w-won’t.”

She sat back, satisfied. “I’ll hold you to that,” she said, pointing her sword at him.

He watched the firelight glint off the tip of the blade and didn’t reply. The argument was over, he knew. She wouldn’t entertain it anymore. And for the sake of his delicate relationship with her, he wouldn’t either. He had to shove everything down, had to be as cold and heartless as her towards their enemies, no matter how much it hurt.

But maybe she had had a point about showing compassion to enemies; what did it mean if they wouldn’t do the same, were the positions reversed? Was his ideology as foolish as she made it out to be? Had he been wrong all this time?

What would the next day bring? Would he be brave - or cowardly - enough to kill someone who meant them no harm, just because his sister insisted upon it?

As he watched her get ready to sleep, pain and dread and apprehension crawled from his head to his toes. He didn’t know, and he didn’t want to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 「i feel spaces opening up inside of me, like a building with rooms i've never explored.」
> 
> dustin: dad, i'm gay and stronger than you, so don't try any shit  
> (that is just my headcanon and you are free to have a different one ♡)  
> anyway let these kids just be dumb awkward siblings pls!!


	8. the crossroads

After being woken up to keep watch, Buddy had sat up with her legs pulled up to her chest and stared off into space. She had relit the fire to stay warm. The fire cracked and popped, crickets chirped, rocks shifted as nocturnal animals wandered around, and the wind howled through the canyons. The first glow of the sun was emerging from the east.

She tossed a Joy pill back and forth between her hands. She hadn’t taken one since yesterday, but withdrawal wasn’t bothering her yet. She had gotten used to the random itch in her throat. It was no different from her stomach growling when she was hungry, or blood clotting at a cut. Just a reaction to a need.

She didn’t remember who told her Joy would make her feel better. She didn’t even remember how she ended up with the pills in her pockets. She just remembered her pain, physical and mental, and remembered how her uncles always told her not to take them, and her rage at being controlled her whole life, at always being told what to do. It was an act of defiance to take the pills. One of her many little rebellions.

It was a trade-off. She could deal with the occasional itch or shaky limb if it meant she was stronger, faster, bolder, and better in battle. Life was full of compromises.

As the sun rose, she didn’t wake Rando, but decided to practice with her sword. She had picked it up off a dead body after her kidnapping and practiced with it ever since. She had been taught to use blades at a young age, but Brad had never given her a real sword.

Her eyes narrowed, focusing on the burnt stump she was using as a target. Suddenly it wasn’t a stump - it was a man. Not Brad, just an amalgam of every man who had ever leered at her and threatened her and made her feel like an object. But it did have his eyes.

She bared her teeth like an animal and charged at the image, slashing from left to right. The amalgam was cleaved in two, blood gushing from both halves of its body as they fell in different directions. Light faded from its eyes.

“Buddy!”

She jumped, and the amalgam was a stump again, now marked with a deep cut. The body, the scent of blood, was gone. She blinked a few times and glanced over to see that Rando had woken up.

“Sorry,” she said. “Just practicing.”

“You sh-should’ve gotten me up,” he said. “W-we can get going.”

Buddy shrugged. “It’s close, right? We’re not in a rush. You can go back to sleep if you’re still tired.”

“N-no, I’m f-fine. Let’s g-get this over with.”

She didn’t like the reluctance in his voice, but he told her last night that they were done arguing about what she wanted, that he was staying. So, if worse came to worst, he could sit the fight out. She could handle herself.

“Alright, then,” she said. “Let’s eat somethin’ and head out.”

The pacifist village was a decent walk away from their campsite. Rando pointed it out from the top of the mesa. The huts and hovels sat on uneven ground, which might be difficult to traverse, but could keep them out of sight of most people there if they took the right route.

“Is it well guarded?” Buddy asked.

“I d-don’t know. You should p-put your mask on.”

“Why? You said they won’t attack us,” she reminded him.

“Yes, b-but, you d-don’t want to draw attention to yours-self if you w-want to...catch their leader off his g-guard,” Rando said.

“Fine.” She put the skull mask on and tightened the strap around her head. “Guess I should put my sword away too, huh,” she said.

“P-probably...if we d-don’t seem like a threat, nobody will s-say anything...y-you know,” he added, “n-nobody would notice us if w-we went in at n-night, maybe it’d b-be best if -”

“I’m not waiting another night,” Buddy interrupted. “We handle this today.”

Rando just nodded, and they headed down the mesa.

They were almost at the entrance when he said her name in the tone of someone who was about to lecture her, and she sighed audibly. “What?” she snapped.

“I know I c-can’t t-talk you out of killing Mister B-Beautiful,” Rando said carefully, “b-but at least d-don’t kill the men who live here. They w-won’t attack you...they aren’t a th-threat to you.”

“Whatever,” she said. “But if they  _ do  _ attack me, I  _ will  _ kill them, and you won’t stop me.”

“I know,” he said.

“Good.” 

They walked past a large stone landmark and entered the village. Buddy’s hair stood on end as she imagined all of the potential enemies watching her from their homes, staring at her, trying to detect some giveaway as to who she was, their desperate animal brains prepared to break through any remaining humanity at the sight or sound or existence of a woman. It made her sick. She bared her teeth under the mask, her hands clenching into fists.

Rando seemed to have sensed her aggression, as he touched her shoulder. “Steady,” he said quietly.

She swallowed it down and forced her tense limbs to relax. “I am,” she muttered.

The first man they walked past was wearing a mask, and Buddy almost jumped at the sight of it. While it wasn’t as creepy as the Joy gang masks, it still had an eerie feeling to it, and she only glanced at the man briefly before looking back at the buildings and rocks and dirt. Still, she felt the man’s gaze on them, though he said nothing and didn’t seem to react in any way. Maybe they had frequent visitors.

Suddenly, shouts and the sounds of a commotion broke out. They heard gunshots and the twang of arrows and exchanged a look. “So much for peaceful,” Buddy said, unsheathing her sword. “Let’s check it out.”

They hurried forward and rounded a few corners to find that someone had started an all-out fight. Before Buddy had another chance to be smug, a few people moved and they saw that the “someone” was a some _ thing -  _ it was a mutant.

“Wow, it really does happen everywhere,” Buddy commented.

“W-we should help,” Rando said.

“Why?” Buddy said with a snort. “S’ none of our business. Maybe it’ll keep these guys distracted while we take out their leader.”

“Or m-maybe it’ll attack us instead,” Rando pointed out.

“What, once it gets through all of them? I think they’ve got it covered,” Buddy said, but they clearly didn’t. Some of them didn’t seem to know how to use weapons, fumbling with whatever they had available. There were already a few bodies scattered across the ground.

She huffed. “Fine, let’s show them how it’s done, then. Maybe they’ll learn something. HEY!” she shouted, making some people look in their directions. “Back off, we’ll handle it!”

She heard some murmuring around her and assumed that some of them were guessing at her gender, but there was no time to worry. She dropped her bag and ran forward, her sword out and ready. The mutant, still wearing the same mask as all the others, turned towards her with a guttural growl, and dropped the severed arm it held in one of its grotesquely distorted hands. It had full control over its legs, and shambled forward towards her. It leaned over her and she jumped, stabbing up at its elongated torso, and blood spattered her face. She quickly ducked and rolled out of the way as it took a swing at her, and she jumped to her feet.

Rando had followed her. A hard punch to its side had forced it halfway to the ground, one of its arms planted into the earth, the other limp. A fireball caught its clothes and set it aflame, and it let out a gurgle of pain, or maybe panic. Buddy slid beneath it and slashed at its ankles, and it collapsed, moaning.

“Good move, huh?” she asked Rando, pushing some hair out of her face.

He just nodded and attacked its torso, landing punch after punch until bones started to crack. It lashed out with an arm and he grabbed it and yanked it back until they heard a loud, gruesome  _ snap. _

“Nice,” said Buddy. “I’ll take care of it.” She dodged a swipe from the mutant’s other arm, then stabbed it through the chest, her blade protruding through the other side of its body. Blood spilled down its chin and it gurgled once more, then was still.

“Easy,” Buddy said casually, wiping her blade off on its still-smouldering clothing. “Go get our stuff, let’s go.”

Rando retreated to grab their things, and she watched him ward off a man who seemed to be thanking him.

“Excuse me...sir?”

She jumped and turned, holding her sword out, and the man in front of her backed away with his hands raised. “What?” she snarled, keeping her voice low.

“S-sorry! Just...thank you,” he said, his voice muffled by his mask. “We don’t fight here...we didn’t know what to do.”

She snorted and lowered her weapon. “Maybe you should learn to defend yourselves. If we hadn’t shown up, you’d all be dead.”

“Er...yeah, maybe. Do you need anything?” he offered. “We can pay you.”

Buddy shrugged. “Sure, pay us, and then take us to your leader.”

“Okay. You must be part of Rando’s gang, then,” he said. “I’ve heard he tries to be peaceful, too. I wish there were more men like that out here.”

“We, er, we fight when we have to,” she said gruffly. “Sometimes you gotta, to protect yourself.”

“Sure, but there hasn’t been a threat here in a long time,” the man said. “I wonder how Ted became a mutant…”

“You don’t know how it happens?” Buddy asked.

He shook his head. “None of us do. Well, maybe it’s -”

“Hey, Joey! Give them this.” Another guy came running up. He held a fistful of magazines. “Thanks for your help, man,” he said to Buddy, and handed them to her. “We’d be screwed without you.”

“Just learn to use some of those weapons you have,” she said, pocketing the magazines. “S’ not that hard.”

“You’re probably right,” he said. “We only use them when we have to...but it means we just don’t use them often.”

“I guess nobody comes down here much?” Buddy asked.

“No, we’re left alone, mostly,” said Joey. “We get our shipments, that’s about it. The latest one’s been delayed, though. Dunno why. We usually get them once a week, we were supposed to get one yesterday. We’re not running out of food, really, but it’s good to stock up, and -”

“You don’t gotta tell them  _ everything,  _ Joe,” the other man interrupted. “Now, you said you wanted to see Mister Beautiful? This diplomacy business? None of the other leaders have been out here in ages.”

“Yeah, diplomacy stuff,” Buddy lied. “Things’ve gotten pretty crazy lately. Can you take us to him?”

“Yeah, I’ll do it,” the man said.

Rando caught up to Buddy and the man gestured to follow him. “S-sorry, g-got distracted,” he said quietly, handing her her backpack. “You okay?”

“Mhm, nobody suspects us,” she muttered. “We’re fine.”

“N-nobody th-thinks you’re…?”

“Not as far as I can tell. Here, take these,” she said, handing the magazines to him.

“Y-you’re n-not going to try to k-keep looking at them?” Rando joked.

She rolled her eyes, not sure if he could tell behind her mask. “Not now that I know what’s on them, I don’t,” she retorted.

“J-just don’t start d-drinking alcohol.”

“After I smelled it the other day? No thank you.”

“You two travelled far, then?” their guide asked.

“Yeah, a ways,” Buddy said. It was better off for everyone for Rando to stay silent. “We’re from out west.”

“Yeah, so I’ve heard. Some of us used to live out there.”

“D’you like it here?” Buddy asked.

“Absolutely. Nobody starts shit, we settle problems by talking, we work together...it almost feels kinda normal. You ever read those  _ Little House on the Prairie  _ books?”

“Uh, no, I was born, like, right before the Flash.”

“Oh, shit, you’re just a kid, then.” Buddy bristled but didn’t say anything. “Surprised your boss has you as a guard.”

_ Ugh. He’s  _ my  _ guard.  _ “Well, you saw me fight,” she said.

“True. Anyway, those books, they were about a family living out in the sticks back in colonial times, living off the land. If we lived in a more fertile place maybe we could grow more than potatoes and spinach. We have all these seeds that just won’t take...maybe you’d have more luck where you are.”

“Seeds?” Buddy echoed.

“Yeah, for vegetables and fruits.” The man laughed. “Maybe you’ve never had any. I dunno what it’s like over there. Tell you what, we have a bunch of extras, I’ll give you some. Wait here.” They came to a stop in front of a well and he left.

“This is stupid,” Buddy muttered. “Why would we want  _ seeds?” _

“It’s a g-good idea,” Rando said. “We t-tried to have gardens...they d-didn’t work out.”

“The plants wouldn’t grow?”

“No, n-nobody wanted to t-take care of them. I tried to, b-but I had t-too much to do. Maybe when th-this is all over, w-we can try it again.”

“Yeah, I guess it’d be good to eat real food,” Buddy conceded.

The man returned with a bag he handed to her. “Here. Give it a shot, why don’t you? There’s instructions written down in there. Some of the guys who live here used to have gardens before the Flash, so they knew what to do.”

“Thanks, maybe we will,” Buddy said, and tossed the bag into her backpack.

“I hope they’ll grow where you are. Anyway, sorry for the delay, Mister Beautiful is down here a ways. We built some homes into the caves, just in case,” the man explained. “The plain flooded once, a few years ago.”

“Is his home, uh, far into the caves?” Buddy asked, hoping that wherever the fight would occur, it wouldn’t be loud enough for the whole town to hear.

“Not exactly, but it’s solidly built. We’d shelter there if another emergency happened.”

The party of three stopped at the entrance to the cave system. “This is where I’ll leave you,” said their guide.

“Thanks,” Buddy said. “Don’t wait, we’ll show ourselves out.”

“Sure,” he said with a nod. “Thanks again for your help.”

“Don’t mention it,” Buddy said curtly, then headed inside. The cave was lit with lanterns on the walls that tilted down into the hills. Rando followed her in and walked past her as she stood, frozen, listening for footsteps.

“Making sure he’s gone,” she said. “We don’t need witnesses.”

Rando nodded. “They’re d-decent people,” he said. “You’ll b-be leaving them without a l-leader.”

“Then maybe they’ll shape up and learn to fight,” Buddy retorted. “You won’t talk me out of this.”

“J-just st-stating a fact,” he said.

“Whatever,” she muttered.

Rando didn’t say anything else as they walked down the tunnel, which ended at a pair of doors set into the rock. Buddy stopped, took out a Joy pill, and took it with a few gulps of water. Once she felt the adrenaline build in her blood, she said, “Let’s do this,” and pushed open the doors.

The man on the other side turned around at the sound. He, too, wore a mask, the same blank but cheery face drawn onto it. “Who - Rando?” he said, surprised. “You should’ve sent word you were coming. What’s going on?”

Buddy drew her sword, still stained with the blood of the mutant. “Are you Mister Beautiful?” she asked, not bothering to disguise her voice this time.

“I am,” he said, standing up. “What is this?”

“I’m sorry, Thomas,” Rando said, and Buddy attacked.

Mister Beautiful was able to dodge her first strike, letting out a noise of shock, but her second swipe caught his side, blood staining his clothes. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing?”

Buddy took off her mask and tossed it aside. “Getting rid of you,” she said.

“So it is true,” he said. “There’s a girl.”

“I’m not just  _ a girl, _ ” Buddy snarled. “I’m me, and I’m gonna kill you.”

He dodged another strike and asked, “Why?”

“Because you’re a threat to me. The world needs to know I’m stronger than everyone on that list,” she spat. She feigned a slash to the left and when he dodged, she aimed for his ankles, but only nicked his calf. He just stepped away.

“Fight back, pussy!” she snarled. “You scared?”

“You’re deluded,” he said, his voice calm. “You’ve been blinded by your anger.”

“Shut up!” 

He continued dodging her attacks and not retaliating. “I know there’s a lot of people threatening you out here,” he said, “but I am not one of them. I believe in peace -“

“You’re tellin’ me you have  _ no  _ interest in me? In any way?” Buddy demanded. “You’re an idiot if you don’t get how special I am. You could hold me hostage, force me to do shit, lock me up, and, fuck, I understand it! But I won’t _ let you!” _

“I don’t want -“

“Shut the fuck up!” she shouted, anger and Joy making her faster, and she caught him in the side again. He staggered and clutched the wound. Breathing heavily, she said, “How am I supposed to believe a single fucking thing anyone says?! I’ve learned what people are. They’re fucking monsters. They’re all just talking mutants.”

“We are more than that,” Mister Beautiful said. Now bleeding in multiple places, he still remained steady. “ _ You  _ can be more than that. But if you kill me, what makes you any different from them?”

“I’m  _ protecting myself!”  _ she spat. This time she feigned a slash, but pivoted on her foot and kicked him hard in the stomach instead, sending him stumbling backwards. He was able to stay on his feet and avoided her next attack, turning in circles as she aimed for his legs.

“Will you just fucking fight me?!” she demanded, her fist clenching around her sword. “You can’t keep dodging forever.”

“I don’t fight,” he said. “Why don’t you ask your companion for help?”

She glanced over at Rando. He had been standing in silence. “I don’t need his help,” she said. “If he doesn’t want to fight you, that’s his business.” His lack of assistance stung, even though she’d been half-expecting it.

She shook her head roughly. The Joy in her body was telling her to fight, kill,  _ something,  _ and she’d been wasting her time having a conversation.  _ No more talking.  _ She charged forward again, letting the blood pounding in her ears drown out any more of her enemy’s words. She struck from left to right and, when he dodged, stabbed forward, and her sword stuck in his arm. She yanked it out with a small burst of blood. When he moved to grab his arm, she moved with him and slashed down. Her blade caught on his mask and the plastic cracked, and she skidded backwards.

When she attacked again, she aimed for his shoulder, but he tilted and her blade struck the mask again. This move knocked the sword out of her hands and it clattered to the floor. She ducked and rolled to grab it, then jumped to her feet. She didn’t give him enough time to start talking again, just ran forward and slid down to strike his legs. She didn’t miss this time, but didn’t quite cut open his heels, so he didn’t collapse. When she tried to stab him in the back, he turned and grabbed her arm. “You need to stop this,” he said.

“Let go of me!” Buddy snarled, trying to yank her arm out of his grip. “Don’t fucking touch me!”

Before her enemy could respond, Rando’s fist connected with his jaw and he was sent sprawling, and Buddy stumbled backward again. Rando shook out his fist and looked at her. “You okay?” he asked.

She just nodded, then bolted over to Mister Beautiful and stabbed down, aiming for the heart, but he rolled and she missed, her sword clanging against the solid ground and the handle nearly hitting her in the face. She backed away, her ears ringing, and saw that Rando had stepped away as well.

Her enemy staggered to his feet, and his mask fell off with a clatter. He looked at Rando with something like disappointment on his face, maybe betrayal, something like that., but he said nothing.

There was nothing special about him. He was just another man. Not that Buddy had expected any different, but somehow it fanned the flames of rage inside of her. 

Joy and her heartbeat thrummed in her head.  _ Just another man who can hurt you,  _ the Joy said.  _ Just another man standing in your way. _

She curled her lip and ran forward, too fast for him to dodge, but she swung too soon, and when her sword ripped through his clothing to leave a long red line down his body, the blade only barely tore his skin. He still clutched the bleeding wound, then looked at her. He still just looked disappointed.

“Fine,” he said. “You leave me no other option.”

When she lunged, he met her and swiped her legs out from underneath her, sending her crashing to the ground and nearly stabbing herself. As she coughed and tried to get back up, she saw Rando attack Mister Beautiful again, aiming for his shoulder, then his stomach, and got blocked each time. Rando took a hit to the stomach and then another to his side, and for that moment, he seemed vulnerable.

Suddenly, she felt  _ afraid _ .

Her eyes narrowed, her brows furrowed, and she bared her teeth.

No, she was  _ Joyful _ . Overjoyed. There was no room for fear. 

Letting out a feral shout, Buddy ran forward and stabbed Mister Beautiful through the side, her blade protruding through the other end. Distracted and in pain, he couldn’t avoid Rando’s uppercut, and he fell further onto Buddy’s sword, which she quickly yanked out. He fell to the floor, clutching the large, bleeding wound and swearing.

Buddy stood above him, pointing her sword at him. “Anything left to say?” she asked, sneering, and kicked him in the stomach.

He coughed, then said, “This won’t - make you happy. Do you really - think - you’re changing - anything?” He coughed again, spitting out blood, and winced. “You’re only hurting yourself.”

“Then why do I feel so  _ good?” _ she asked with a hoarse laugh, baring her teeth again in a broad, awful smile. “I feel  _ fucking great.” _

“It’s the Joy,” he said. “It makes you - more violent. It takes - takes away your humanity. You were different before it. You - you know that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she snarled. “That girl is dead now.  _ I’m  _ in charge. And it’s time for  _ you  _ to die.”

He seemed to accept his fate, tilting his head to the left and looking off into space. Buddy raised her sword -

“No!”

She jumped so violently she dropped the sword and it fell to the floor. She turned to Rando, who had shouted. His hands were clenched into fists.

“B-Buddy, you c-c-can’t, you h-ha-have to s-stop,” he said, his stutter more pronounced than usual. “You c-can’t kill him, l-look at him, he c-can’t hurt you, you d-don’t need to -”

“Shut up! What the fuck did I just say to you?” she demanded. Another, brand new, hot rush of anger flooded her body, tainted with betrayal and shame. “You won’t stop me! You  _ can’t  _ stop me. You just  _ fought  _ him  _ for me!” _

“This is w-wrong, B-Buddy, you kn-now this is wr-rong,” Rando said. He was pleading with her. “You n-need to st-stop. He d-doesn’t have to d-d-die.”

“Yes he does! He’s a threat to me, so he dies!” she spat. She picked up the sword and aimed it back at Mister Beautiful’s chest. “It’s what I came here to do!”

“B-Buddy, p-please, just listen! What w-will this d-do? D-do you really think his m-men could c-capture you? They can h-hardly f-fight! What c-could they d-do to you? Even if they f-found you, what c-could they do? This is p-p-pointless!” Rando insisted, his voice shaking and shuddering.

She paused.

“B-Buddy...you’re s-smart...you know who c-can and c-can’t hurt you,” Rando continued desperately. “He...these p-people...they c-couldn’t get to you. We’ll l-leave...and n-none of them will ever s-see you again. You d-don’t have to do this...p-please, Buddy, have some m-m-mercy.”

Many seconds ticked by before Buddy withdrew her sword and backed away. She watched Mister Beautiful as he sat up, bleeding from all of his wounds, looking at her with a different expression - maybe respect.

“Let’s g-go,” Rando said, relieved. 

Buddy turned around and headed for the door, Rando beside her.

_ Three, two, one. _

In a split second, Buddy whipped around, sprinted forward, and struck. The dim light of the room lit the edge of her sword as it sliced through Mister Beautiful’s neck, a clean decapitation. His head fell to the floor, his last expression frozen on his face.

Buddy looked back at Rando. He stood motionless a few feet away. His arms, tense for a moment, fell limp at his sides.

Buddy raised her head and stared into the eye sockets of his mask. “Don’t try that again,” she said.

Dustin was silent.

Neither of them had spoken as they left the village. Not to the men, not to each other. They hadn’t spoken after they left it behind them. They didn’t speak when they took a break to eat and drink. They didn’t speak when they kept walking. Silence stretched for miles between them.

If he could ever place a feeling to the word heartbreak, this was it. It felt like he was split in half. For a few seconds, he had let himself believe Buddy had seen the light. For a few seconds, he had hoped that she could be different. But he was wrong.

He had believed in people all his life, had believed that they could be better, do better, be good. This wasn’t the first time he had been proven wrong, but it hurt like the first time.

He was mad. He was sad. Distraught. Betrayed. Guilty. Furious. 

He shouldn’t have said anything. He knew that. But the way Thomas had looked at him with Buddy’s sword pointed at his chest told him that he had to at least  _ try  _ to stop her, regardless of their conversation from the night before.

_ He didn’t have to die. _

He wanted to scream, shout, do  _ something.  _ But all he could do was cry. When he was a foster child, he had gotten very good at crying quietly. It was a skill put to good use now.

When the sun set, he broke the heavy silence by saying, “L-let’s f-find a place for camp,” wincing at the emotion in his voice. Even speaking threatened to open the floodgates.

“What’s wrong with you?” Buddy asked, clearly hearing it. “Are you crying?”

“N...yeah,” Dustin said. No point in lying to her.

“Oh.” She opened her mouth to say something else, then shook her head and walked a few feet away to look around. “There’s a little outcropping over there,” she said, pointing to the east. “Could keep watch from right there and sleep behind it.”

“S-sure.”

Again they ate and drank in silence, and Buddy got ready to sleep, wordlessly assigning the first watch to Dustin. He sat close by, looking out at the moon and stars and wondering if there really was a better life ahead of them somewhere. Could anything ever change? Would Buddy ever change?

They were halfway through the list. What would happen after the rest of the men were dead? What would Buddy want after that?

He wanted to cry again, so full of grief for the life they could have had, for the life stolen from them by the Flash. He grieved for a universe where things were okay. For a world where they were happy. For a world where the circumstances of her life hadn’t warped his little sister into a monster. For a world where he had less blood on his hands. 

_ I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. _

When the sun rose the next day, only one person was left on the outcropping. The other was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 「the darkness was what was underneath. it was mine all along, and i decided how much of it i let into the world.」


	9. the shift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aight i couldn't wait to update until friday cause your boy got their fuckin MOJO back and i've been writing so much of this!! enjoy this big ol mess! or don't i'm not your dad

As the rising sun sent her shadow stretching across the ground, Buddy’s pace slowed. While she was running away, she had forgotten that she really didn’t know where she was, and now pivoted on her left foot in a circle, staring around, looking for landmarks, as her heart pounded. _Why the hell haven’t I been asking Rando about this shit?_ she demanded, mentally smacking herself. _You can’t just rely on people! You should know that by now, idiot._

Bitter, angry shame sunk from her head to the pit of her stomach. She wasn’t _lost,_ they had travelled in a pretty linear direction to get to the pacifist village and travelling north wasn’t hard, but she knew that any number of circumstances could send her off track. What if she had to run, or hide, or look for materials or shelter? She’d been too caught up in her quest to pay attention to the world. Too busy asking Rando about his life, or interrogating him about the magazines, or listening to his stories.

Heat stung the corners of her eyes and she sat down with a _thump,_ wrapping her shaking arms around her knees. _You can do this,_ she thought, squeezing her eyes shut. _Just think. Just think. You can figure things out. If you lower your voice, you can ask random guys. You can explore and find things for yourself. You don’t need him! You don’t need anyone!_

She let the last few words echo in her mind for a minute longer before staggering to her feet again. It wouldn’t do any good to linger in one place, especially when she was still on the run.

 _“Buddy!”_ came from far behind her, and she froze.

 _Shit._ She broke into a sprint - or as much of a sprint as one could call it, considering her bag. Looking around for potential hiding places, she spotted a bunch of rocks and boulders and dashed over. She clambered into a little alcove, pulled in her things, curled up, and waited.

After a little while, she heard footsteps slow, then stop. “Buddy!” Rando called again, sounding scared, almost panicked. “B-Buddy! I’m s-sorry! I d-d...d…” He trailed off. Then, the footsteps began again, and faded away.

Guilt stung her chest. He wasn’t supposed to care about her. _She_ wasn’t supposed to care about _him._ This was supposed to be a tenuous alliance based solely on the fact that she was female and he was strong. But being able to rely on and trust someone for the first time in her life broke down the walls she’d become so good at constructing, much to her extreme disappointment, and maybe his walls had crumbled down as well, if he even had any. To her embarrassment, she hadn’t even been able to leave until dawn, worried that leaving him alone at night could’ve gotten him killed, but she shouldn’t even _care!_

 _Did I do the right thing?_ she asked herself, responding with _yes_ a moment later. _Making him stay with me wouldn’t work because he wouldn’t want to help me, so he’d be useless,_ she thought. _Maybe he’d even keep trying to prevent me from doing what I need to do. What if he starts acting the way Brad did? I can’t trust him. I can’t trust anyone. I was right. I’ve been right. I’m right._

Eventually, when her limbs ached from the position she’d been curled in, she extracted herself from the alcove and gingerly crept down and off of the rocks.

Back in the open air, the sun had fully risen and the temperature was warming. Buddy shook off the last of the nighttime cold, adjusted her things, and faced north again. She squared her shoulders and continued.

“Buddy!”

“WAUGH!” Buddy yelled in shock, whirling around and slashing out with her sword, but Rando was too far away for it to touch him. Even so, he backed away, his hands raised. He must have hidden earlier and waited for her to emerge. She glanced down; she had left footprints leading right to her hiding place. _Of course._

“Buddy, I’m sor -”

“Stop!” Buddy cut him off. She could feel her face burning with shame and she couldn’t look at him, only stare off into the sky above his head. “I left for a reason! Don’t follow me!”

“Wh-why?”

“You know why!” she shouted. “After what you did, I can’t trust you to help me!” She lowered her sword. “I can do this on my own,” she said. “I don’t need you.”

“I kn-now you don’t n-need me,” he said. “I’m not here b-because you need me.”

“Then why _are_ you here?” she demanded. “You don’t agree with what I _need_ to do, so just - just go and do your own shit! Go find your gang, or whatever, I don’t care! If you’re not gonna help me, then just leave me alone!”

“I w-will help you,” he said. “I’m s-sorry f-for saying...what I s-said yesterday.”

“It’s not just that,” Buddy said. She huffed and looked off to the east, to the rising sun. “It’s - I don’t _want_ you to feel like shit constantly, alright? I know what it’s like to feel like shit, and if it makes you that miserable to be with me when I’m killing people...then you shouldn’t be.”

Her words fell on silence that lasted for too long, long enough that she felt that shame again, shame on herself for _feeling._ She shouldn’t _feel_. That should have burned out of her when she left her old life behind. But she did.

“That d-doesn’t matter,” Rando said. “What m-matters is k-keeping you alive.”

“I can keep _myself_ alive!” she spat. “Don’t stick around for _my_ sake!”

“B-but -”

“No! Stop! You keep acting like I’m some defenseless little kid!” she shouted. “When are you gonna realize I’m perfectly fucking fine by myself?!”

“I kn-now that -”

“Well, if you do, then why the hell are you still hanging around?!” Buddy demanded. “What do _you_ get out of it? Are you just waiting around for me to be done so you can hustle me away with whatever’s left of your gang? You got any more _friends_ who might just try to fucking rape me and tie me up?!”

“No! Buddy…” He sounded legitimately hurt, even scandalized, and for a moment she felt a flicker of guilt, shifting on her feet.

She shook her head, summoning all of her frustration and anger and confusion again. “Then _why?_ Do you even have an answer for me? Or just more excuses? Do you have a single _decent fucking reason_ why you’re staying with me no matter what I do? Why do you put up with this? With _me?_ _Why?!”_

“Because you’re my sister!” he blurted out.

She stared at him for maybe five seconds, maybe five hours. “What?” she asked eventually.

“You’re...my sister. Do...you know what th-that means?” he asked.

“Uh, yeah, it’s...when you have...the same parents,” she said. Things were coming together in her head, things from when she was young, things from weeks or days or hours ago. “I’m...your sister? Wait…”

She pressed her hand to her forehead, pulling an old, old memory out of her mind. A conversation she had overheard between her uncles, one she had interrupted and asked about. She remembered the awkward explanation, one she hadn’t fully grasped. She remembered telling Brad, watching his expression turn to anger, wincing as he raised his voice at her and told her not to ask about that again. She remembered a name.

“Dustin,” she said. “Is that you? You’re...Brad’s son.”

“He...mentioned me?” he asked, and she hated the _hope_ in his voice, a desperation she remembered, that longing to be _recognized,_ to be _known._ It sparked a fire of anger that burst inside her heart, and her rage against Brad was renewed.

“You weren’t _mentioned,”_ she spat, “I overheard my uncles talking and when I brought it up with him, he told me to just shut up and not talk about it, so nobody ever talked about it again.”

Rando - _Dustin -_ looked down at the ground. “S-sounds about right,” he said, clearly trying to lighten his tone but failing.

Buddy’s hands clenched into fists so tight her nails cut into her palms, and she shouted, “He fucking _lied_ to me! He didn’t tell me fucking anything! He didn’t tell me he had a _son!”_ Her heartbeat pounded in her mouth, her head, her chest. She felt numb. “And, what, he abandoned you? Or were things so shitty that you left?”

Dustin said nothing.

Buddy kept ranting, pacing, gesticulating. “He managed to fuck up _twice?_ He had two shots to take care of a kid, to try to raise them decently, and he fucked up _twice?!”_ she spat. “I thought he was a bad father ‘cause of the Flash, but he probably treated you like shit too! There’s no fucking _excuse_ for that! It’s...you…”

Her voice was shaking with pure fury. Anger coursed like Joy through every vein, culminated at every nerve ending, echoed in her body. Her mind yelled incoherently at images of Brad, trying to take out her rage on a man who didn’t exist anymore. It had nowhere to go. She wanted to punch, she wanted to kick, fight, do _something._

Her legs shaking too hard to keep her up, she sat down with a _thump,_ focusing on a single stone on the ground as her vision darkened, as she bared her teeth in anger. “How could he _do this_ to me?” she asked of thin air, her voice trembling. Sorrow threatened to break through the wall of rage, and her growl almost became a wail of misery. _He hurt me so much. How could he keep this from me? He had a son._

_I have a brother._

“B-Buddy, it’s okay,” Dustin said, his voice remarkably calm compared to hers.

“It’s _not_ okay!” she shouted. “How is any of this _okay?_ What the hell is _wrong_ with you? Why aren’t you fucking _mad?”_ She was burning with emotion. Anger, betrayal, something else. Her eyes stung.

“It’s b-been over a d-decade,” Dustin said. “I’m n-not mad anymore...I just w-wish things had been different. He taught me s-so much. I’ll n-never forget that…”

“Who gives a shit what he taught you, if he wasn’t a real dad to you?” Buddy demanded. “Why did he do this to us? Why…” She trailed off.

A few moments passed. She turned everything over in her mind.

“So...that’s why this doesn’t matter,” she said. “Everything I’m doing. Because...we’re family.”

“We’re family,” Dustin echoed. “And...a f-family should st-stick together.”

“ _Brad_ didn’t,” Buddy muttered, folding her arms.

“B-but we’re not him,” Dustin said. “We don’t have to b-be like him. We can be better. B-Buddy, I’m not g-going to leave you, not as l-long as I’m b-breathing. I’ll f-fight with you and kill with you if you t-truly believe that that’s the answer to your p-pain, and if that’s wh-what I need to do for you to be s-safe. I’m s-sorry for what I s-said yesterday...I shouldn’t’ve t-tried to interf-fere.”

“Even if you hate it?” Buddy asked, hating the weakness and desperation in _her_ voice, now. She wanted him to stay with her because she _cared_ about him, she cared about her brother, her _brother._

“N-no matter what,” he said. “I c-can disagree w-with you and still b-believe in you. You can c-count on me, I p-promise. I’m s-sorry if I’ve ever...acted like Brad, if he...t-tried to control you and h-hurt you.”

She shook her head. “No. Look, I get angry, and I say shit. But...you aren’t like him. ‘Cause you let me...be myself, I guess. I know you don’t _agree_ with me, but...you listen to me. I can...say stuff in front of you. I can be honest. I can be real. And _you’re_ honest. _You_ say real shit to me. You treat me like a _person._ I…” She swallowed and straightened her back, looking down at the ground, messing with her hands. “I’ve always felt like...I dunno. An object. I’ve never been in control of my own life. You’re the first person who doesn’t treat me like an object. You’re the first person who’s recognized that I’ve got a fucking brain. That I’m not just _a girl._ I’m _me._ I don’t think Brad ever saw me as me. But...you do.”

Dustin waited until he was sure she was done before saying, “I’m g...glad. That I’m n-not...like him - like that - t-to you.” He laughed once. "I'm glad I d-didn't s-seem like a dad t-to you."

“I already had a dad,” Buddy said. “Didn’t work out.” She stared at her own hands, wonder still swimming in her head. “But...I’ve never had a brother.”

She got up, dusted herself off, and extended a hand with a shaky smile. “So...let’s go north?”

Instead of a handshake, she found herself wrapped in a hug, his arms, her _brother’s_ arms around her for the first time, knowing that he cared about her and truly wanted the best for her, and suddenly she knew what family meant, what family was, what a family should be. She should have had something like this all along.

That was when she burst into tears for the first time in weeks, all her stress and pain and anger and despair finally exploding out of her, loud wracking sobs torn from her throat as she embraced the only family she had, and Dustin hesitated for a moment before patting her back. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’ll b-be okay. I’m h-here for you, Buddy, I promise.”

Sniffling aggressively, she backed away and rubbed her working eye. “Ugh, I’m wasting water,” she mumbled, and they both laughed.

She sniffed again and cleared her throat, then shook her head roughly. “Okay! Well, uh, let’s, uh, let’s go,” she said.

“W-we can b-be back at the c-crossroads b-before dark,” Dustin said. 

They traveled in a much more comfortable silence for a little while. Buddy was torn between wanting to ask him everything and not wanting to overwhelm him. He had told her quite a bit since they had started their quest together, but that was when he was just a stranger who wanted to help her, not the brother she never knew she had. Some kind of real happiness glowed under all her anger and frustration.

When they stopped for lunch, she broke the silence. “So, like...I kinda wanna know more about...the whole ‘you’re my brother’ thing,” she said. “How old were you when Brad adopted you?”

“F-fourteen,” Dustin said. “Not m-much older than y-you are n-now.”

“So you were in school? What exactly did he teach you?” Buddy asked, reclining against a rock.

“He t-taught me k-karate,” Dustin replied. “Th-that was how he f-found out I was a f-foster kid...after p-practice, I d-didn’t want to go home.”

“Did he teach you until you...left, I guess?”

“Y-yes, m-mostly. I m-moved out when I was n-nineteen, and I k-kept learning after that.”

“Why’d you move out?”

Dustin took a while to respond, and Buddy felt awkward, worried she had asked for too much. Eventually, though, he said, “I r-realized I w-wasn’t...happy. And that I d-deserved to f-feel happy. I w-was so g-grateful to have a f-family...but B-Brad didn’t know how to b-be a father.”

She snorted and kicked a rock. “Yeah, he really didn’t.”

“I d-don’t think he had one,” Dustin said. “He n-never m-mentioned any p-parents...I didn’t have g-grandparents, either. I th-think...I think s-something happened w-with them. B-Brad told me to n-never call him Dad.”

“Me too!” Buddy exclaimed, sitting up a little. “I called him that ‘cause my uncles would sometimes say ‘your dad’ when they talked to me, but whenever I did, he’d flinch n’ tell me not to. I asked, but he never told me why.”

Dustin nodded. “S-something m-must’ve happened. I wonder…”

“What?”

“I wonder if his d-dad was w-worse than him.” That theory didn’t make either of them feel any better.

Buddy drummed her fingers on her knees. Brad’s parenting techniques had certainly affected her - he had taught her to fight, had taught her to be cautious and careful, but he had also made her feel alone and selfish and stupid. If there was anything she could say about him now that she was gone and he was dead - or at least his brain was dead - it was that he was in a lot of pain. Nothing else could have driven him to drink so much or take so much Joy. If she was affected so much by him, it made sense that he’d be impacted a lot by _his_ parents. Maybe she was just another part of a cycle.

“Buddy?”

“Mhm?” She raised her head. “Sorry, just thinkin’. It - I told you I like, met his dad, right?"

"Really? You d-didn't say. W-when?" Dustin asked.

"When I was, uh, on my own. I'd gotten separated from my Uncle Sticky, so I stole a boat and found an island, and there was a guy there. The whole place was _covered_ in bottles, but he was...nice, I guess. Didn't try to rape me or anything. He gave me food and let me sleep there and stuff. He asked me a bit about my life, but I didn't say much. And then Brad followed me there...he called the guy Dad. So that was his dad, I guess."

"W-what happened?"

Buddy scoffed and shook her head. "It was Brad. What d'you think happened? He ganked him. Hit me in the process, too. There's a first time for everything." She rubbed her cheek like she'd been struck just then, not weeks ago. Dustin didn't say anything, but she saw his hands clench into fists. "I don't think he killed him 'cause of me, though. I think it was something else. So maybe you're right. Maybe his dad was super shitty n' that's why he did it..."

Dustin nodded once, still not speaking. 

Feeling awkward, Buddy asked, "When you...were living with Brad, did he drink a lot?”

“Y-yes, b-but he tried to hide it,” said Dustin. “T-took out the recyc-cling all the time, hid the b-bottles...but I c-could usually tell.”

“Did he do drugs, too? Like, besides Joy?”

“J-Joy wasn’t around back then,” Dustin said, “b-but he took prescrip-ption p-painkillers. I d-don’t know how he g-got them.”

“Prescription?” Buddy echoed.

“D-doctors had to g-give them to p-people, you c-couldn’t just buy them,” Dustin explained. “They w-were r-really strong.”

“Oh. And he didn’t get them from a doctor?”

“No. M-maybe from one of his f-friends.”

“So he’d always been like that. Maybe he picked it up from his dad," Buddy said, looking off into the distance. A few crows flew across the sky, and far off, vultures were circling something. “It’s good to know it...wasn’t my fault.”

“Of c-course it w-wasn’t your fault,” Dustin said fiercely. “He ch-chose to ad-dopt you. S-something had h-hurt him long b-before he found you...it isn’t your f-fault he t-took that out on you.”

She kind of knew all of that already, but it felt reassuring to hear him say it with such conviction. “Thanks,” she said. “It, uh...I’m sure it wasn’t your fault, either. Sounds like something really fucked him up.”

“I think...s-someone died,” Dustin said. “There w-was one time...w-we were both home. I was j-just doing h-homework. I heard him on the ph-phone arranging s-something...I thought it s-sounded like a f-funeral.”

“For who?”

“I c-couldn’t f-find out. One day he l-left the ap-partment wearing a suit, and th-then he came back a f-few hours later...I asked wh-where he’d been, and he d-didn’t really say.”

“Maybe that was his mom who died,” Buddy said.

“M-maybe.” Dustin shifted. “There w-was...s-something else.”

“What?” Buddy drummed on her knees again. “This is kinda cool, it feels like we’re figuring out a mystery,” she said, smiling.

“It...I was…” He shook his head. “S-sorry...I d-don’t like t-talking about this.”

“Oh. Uh, you don’t have to, then,” said Buddy, suddenly feeling bad and awkward again. “...sorry.” She figured she’d better get used to saying that more.

Dustin sighed. “I’ll t-tell you. I j-just...I have to...p-prepare for it.”

“Well, can ya give me a hint?” Buddy asked as she got up and stretched. “Then we should keep going.”

Dustin stood up. “It’s about my f-face,” he said. “That’s...all I can s-say for now.”

By the time their shadows were starting to elongate, Buddy stopped. They were standing in an unfamiliar environment - at least, she thought. “R - Dustin?” she said.

“Wh-what?” he asked, stopping a few feet ahead of her.

“Where are we?”

“...on our w-way back?”

“Then how come I don’t recognize anything? Are we lost?” Buddy gestured around. “Pretty sure things weren’t this craggy earlier.”

Dustin got up and walked around, looking in all directions. “...we m-might be lost,” he admitted.

“What?! How?!”

“I d-don’t know! I g-got distracted! It’s been a p-pretty big day,” he reminded her.

“I guess,” she said, “but still, come on! Do you know where we are?”

“If we can g-get to higher g-ground, I’ll know,” Dustin said firmly. “Q-quick, b-before the sun s-sets.”

It took a lot of huffing and puffing and climbing and throwing their bags around and Buddy occasionally standing on her brother’s shoulders, but eventually they made it to the top of a large, rocky, pointy hill. The sky was beginning to turn various shades of orange and purple, but the sun hadn’t set yet.

“Well?” Buddy asked from her position face-up on a rock slab. She was still recovering from the climactic scramble to that particular chunk of stone.

“Y-yes, I kn-now where we are now,” Dustin said, to her relief. “W-we just went too f-far w-west.”

“Cool. So we just gotta go east.”

“Y-yes...well…”

“Well, what?”

“There’s s-something I w-want to find out,” he said.

“What is it?”

Hesitantly, he replied, “I th-think T-Thomas was right when he s-said that J-Joy makes you m-more violent. G-general you.”

“Huh. Why d’you think that?” Buddy asked. She was watching the colors in the sky.

“B-because I’ve s-seen it in action. It ch-changes how people act and th-think. They w-want to fight more...they’re l-less interested in p-peace.”

“You sure they didn’t just change their minds?” she asked a little pointedly.

“Yes, I’m s-sure. I think it ch-changes your b-brain.”

“Well, yeah, I can vouch for that. It gives me more energy, heightens my senses and reflexes…”

“Does it make y-you angrier?” Dustin asked.

She frowned. “I dunno. I can’t speak for anyone else, but it feels like...Joy brings out my anger so I can use it. That make sense? Like, I’m angry, but it doesn’t go anywhere. Joy gives it a place to go.”

“B-because it tells you to fight?”

“Yeah.”

“I know you w-want to k-keep killing the m-men on the list, and I’m w-with you,” Dustin said, “but I w-want to learn more ab-bout Joy, too.”

“Fair enough,” said Buddy. “I guess it’d be good to know more about it. Why bring this up?”

“B-because, out w-west, that’s wh-where the old J-Joy labs are,” Dustin replied. “Or s-so everyone s-said.”

“Oh. So, what, you wanna take a murder break?”

Dustin laughed. “Y-yes. Is that okay w-with you?”

“S’ fine, as long as we get back to my thing soon.”

“We w-will,” he said. “It sh-shouldn’t take m-more than a day.”

“Alright, then.” Buddy yawned. “You wanna just crash here? Seems pretty safe, if uncomfy.”

“S-sure. I’ll t-take first watch,” Dustin said, “just d-don’t go running off again.” He paused, then asked, “D-did you leave just b-because you d-didn’t want to m-make me kill people?”

“No, I left because - well - sort of, yeah, whatever,” Buddy grumbled, folding her arms across her chest. “Sorry for wanting to be a good person or whatever.”

“Thank you f-for thinking of me,” Dustin said, making her scowl further. “B-but I t-told you, B-Buddy...I’m with you. F-family sticks together.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, and tilted her head so she could grin at him. Cheesy and dumb as it sounded, she still felt that happy glow in her chest when she said, “Family sticks together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 「take my heart when you go.」「take mine in its place.」
> 
> LMAO  
>  Loving  
>  My  
>  Akids  
>  sOmuch also quoting bojack horseman bc we love heartbreaking shows in this house


	10. the doomed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quoted billie eilish in this one bc i have no originality, go listen to everything i wanted bc its a good buddy song, also the kidz la croix opinions are my own

“Are we there yet?”

“Almost.”

“You said that ages ago!”

“I m-mean it this time.”

“You better,” Buddy was grumbling. She goose-stepped next to Dustin, her shoulders slouched. “I hate this stupid place.” A tree creaked and she turned to stare at it, her whole body tensing.

“Why?”

“Uh, because the last time I was here I was being dragged around by creepy strangers the whole time,” she reminded him. “Being in constant danger isn’t my best memory.”

“R-right. Well, you’ve g-got a sword now. And you’ve g-got me.”

She smiled. “Yeah. That helps.”

Dustin stopped and Buddy stopped with him. “We’re here,” he said.

Buddy peered out at the scene before them. It seemed normal enough, just a bunch of old, fallen-in houses, but something about it gave her the creeps, and she felt the hair on her arms stand on end. Maybe it was the dead silence - no birds, no animals, not even any wind - or the odd smell that hung in the air.

Buddy wrinkled her nose. “What’s that smell? It’s weird.”

“D-death,” Dustin said. “Something d-died, and n-nothing’s g-gotten to the body.”

“What d’you mean, nothing?”

“W-well, sc-scavengers eat dead b-bodies...vultures, wild d-dogs, other animals,” Dustin said. “And th-then, b-bugs will eat the rest.”

“Gross. So you’re saying that didn’t happen?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Why?”

“I d-don’t know. We’ll f-find out.”

Dustin walked forward but Buddy hung back, still freaked out by the eerie landscape. “Wait, are you sure this is a good idea? I’m not scared,” she said quickly, standing taller. “I just - what’re you expecting to find here?”

“This is w-where J-Joy testing and d-d-development took place,” said Dustin. “...er, supposedly.”

“You don’t know for sure?”

“I heard r-rumors.”

“So you’re hoping to learn more about how Joy was made, or somethin’?”

Dustin nodded.

“Well, you’ve been helping me, so I’ll help you,” Buddy said with a huff. “Family sticks together.”

“F-family sticks together,” Dustin echoed, and patted her on the shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” she said gruffly. “Let’s go.”

They found the first body when Dustin pushed a door open only to jump back with a sound of disgust.

“What?” Buddy asked, not sure if she wanted to look.

“It’s...s-something,” Dustin said. “I...I c-can’t even t-tell if it’s  _ human.” _

“Is it a dead mutant?”

“M-maybe, but n-not like one I’ve ever s-seen.”

Swallowing her dread, Buddy walked forward to peer down at the body and immediately recoiled. “Gross! What the hell  _ is  _ that?”

The dead body was humanoid in shape, but its head was too large, its skin was too much of a sickening pale yellow-beige, and its body bulged weirdly in too many places for it to be human.

She frowned. Mutants didn’t always look human, but they looked like they  _ used  _ to be human. They looked like if you took a human and just stretched them in a few different directions. But, somehow, this was almost worse.

“Well, you were right, nothing’s touched this thing,” she commented. The body was completely intact, besides the cause of death - a bloody hole in its chest. The blood had long since stained the floor. “I wonder why.”

She glanced at Dustin. He hadn’t said anything. “You good, man?”

“T-trying n-not to gag,” he said, and she laughed.

“Can you tell how long it’s been dead?” Buddy asked.

“N-no. P-probably a while. L-look at the skin color...and the sh-shape, too. It’s a d-different k-kind of mutant,” he said.

“Yeah, looks like it. C’mon, let’s check out the house,” Buddy said, patting her brother on the back before stepping over the body and looking around the room. There was nothing about it that stood out to her, and it must not have stood out to Dustin, either, as he paid it no mind, just walked over to a door. He opened it and peered into the darkness. 

“What’s over there?” Buddy asked as she kicked an old chair riddled with holes.

“St-stairs. I’m g-going to l-light a t-torch.”

“You really wanna go down there?” Buddy asked warily, heading over to him.

“M-maybe there’s s-something important.”

Buddy grunted but didn’t say anything else, hoping she didn’t seem too freaked out as she followed Dustin down the stairs. At the bottom was another, metal door, that had been left open enough for people to get through.

With the lack of any sounds or bodies, Buddy’s anxiety eased and she trotted next to Dustin, peering at the dimly lit walls and floor. “What’s this all look like to you?” she asked. “You’d know better than me.”

“L-looks like a l-lab,” Dustin replied. “Scientists d-did exp-periments in those.”

“Experiments? Like what?”

“Like d-drug testing.”

They rounded a corner and Buddy let out a shriek and grabbed Dustin’s arm, turning her face away into the dark.

“Buddy, it’s okay,” Dustin said. “It’s d-dead.”

Cautiously, Buddy extracted herself from his arm and looked back at the body on the ground. It was indeed very dead, no movements indicating breathing.

“Right. S’ fine,” she said gruffly. She took a few steps away. “I’m fine. Wasn’t scared.”

“H-hold this,” Dustin said, passing her the torch, and she held it above him as he knelt down by the body. “It’s another one of the w-weird m-mutants. They’re v-very p-pale...I w-wonder if they were the experim-ments.”

“Like, they were being tested on, or something?” Buddy asked, wrinkling her nose as she forced herself to look at the thing. “Did scientists give them Joy? Or some kind of first version of it?”

“M-maybe...I just w-wish we could know what they w-were like when they w-were alive.”

“Ew,  _ I  _ don’t. Knowing our luck, they’d probably just try to kill us.”

“P-probably,” Dustin agreed.

Buddy walked around, holding the torch up to the walls. She turned and bumped into some kind of counter, then moved the torch to see a tall cabinet filled with boxes. “You think any of this is useful?” she asked, gesturing at it.

Dustin, being much taller than her, was able to take down some of the boxes. All were locked except one, and he took a bunch of papers out of it. 

“Can you tell what it says?” Buddy asked.

“N-not really,” Dustin admitted, flipping between them. “It’s v-very...d-detailed. I’m no s-scientist. M-maybe if I can f-find the abstract…”

“The what?”

“It’s an intro to r-research papers,” he said. He stopped on one paper. “Here’s s-something…‘ _ d-dioxy...quino...ione...426... _ assigned b-by C-Commander Walsh...head researcher’...this p-part is blacked out...”

“Is dioxy-whatever Joy?” Buddy asked, trying to read the abstract over Dustin’s shoulder but not deciphering much of it.

“M-maybe,” Dustin said. He continued reading. “...‘d-designed in order t-to enhance a s-soldier’s ab-b-bility in c-combat.’”

“Sounds like Joy,” Buddy commented.

“‘C-clinical trials r-resume on the 28th…s-second and th-third rounds of t-tests...limited av-vailab-bility...’ I d-don’t think I c-can get anymore out of this,” Dustin said. “B-but I’m g-going to take some of these p-papers.”

Once he had stashed them away, they headed back upstairs, Buddy leading the way, anxious to get out of the creepy lab. Once back outside, she turned to where they had come, only to see Dustin going the other way. “Do we have to keep going?” she asked, hurrying to catch up to him. “We found that stuff.”

“There m-might be more info,” Dustin said. “It’ll b-be okay, Buddy, I’m here.”

“I’m fine!” she snapped, then scowled. She grabbed his wrist and didn’t say anything, and neither did he.

The next house they checked had a similar layout. They found another door that led down to another lab in the basement, and they smelled the scent of death again.

“Must be another body down here,” Buddy said. She had released Dustin’s arm when they wandered through the house, and stood close to him, despite how embarrassing it was. She had murdered three warlords, had fought men  _ on top of a moving vehicle,  _ had dodged bullets and swords and fists, and she was  _ this  _ freaked out by seeing dead mutants?  _ Get it together,  _ she thought.

They came upon another open metal door. “You go first,” Buddy said. “I’ll watch your back,” she added brusquely.

Dustin headed inside and stopped. “There’s a b-body,” he said. “And...oh.”

“What? Is it alive?”

“No, n-no, it’s...it’s a m-mutant.”

“Like the ones from before?”

“No. Like the ones we’ve b-been fighting.”

Buddy took a deep breath, steeled herself, and entered the room. She looked down, saw the body, and wanted to vomit. It had the same pale, yellowed skin as the strange bodies from before, but was stretched and bloated and disfigured like the typical mutants. As with the others, no scavengers had gotten to this body. Come to think of it, she had seen bites taken out of dead men, but never dead mutants. Even animals knew there was something wrong with them.

“It’s like a normal mutant combined with those other ones,” she said. “What the hell happened to it that made it different?”

“Someone k-killed all of these m-mutants...b-but this one must have p-put up m-more of a fight. Look,” Dustin said. The disgusting mass of old flesh was marred with cuts, slashes, bullet holes, bruises, and similar wounds.

“So this is more like the normal mutants,” Buddy said. “The other ones weren’t as much of a threat. But why would it look like that? All yellow and gross. Was this a test subject too?...”

She trailed off, and in that moment, she knew the same thought had occurred to both of them.

Dustin walked past the body. “There’s s-some n-notes over here,” he said. “H-handwritten...m-maybe it was this m-man before he m-mutated.” He read them, then re-read them, then lowered them.

“What do they say?” Buddy asked.

Dustin didn’t say anything, just handed them to her and held the torch so she could read them.

_ Dr. Lemont’s notes  _ was scrawled at the top of the first paper. Then,  _ Dr. Yado’s Joy project is a complete failure, and I’m glad. None of the experiments had any military benefit. _

_ I can’t wait to go home. _

She turned to the next one.

_ Some of the other sciintists are staying behind. As for as am concerned they r sik. It sholdnt be ligal . I want to feel her agin . _

_ smash her fase in over over agin _

From then on, it was unreadable. 

She looked down at the mutant.

Her mind churned.

_ These mutants were test subjects. Test subjects for Joy. Multiple tests. Lots of test subjects. Maybe the scientists volunteered to test the drug they made. Maybe they took it. This was one of them. He lost his mind. He got violent. He mutated. _

When it hit her, it seemed so obvious, seemed so crazy she hadn’t known it before, but her hands trembled nonetheless. She should’ve known when she saw what happened to Brad. Should’ve known when she found pills in every mutants’ pockets. She should’ve known. But she didn’t.

_ Joy makes you mutate. _

They both knew, she knew. They stood there in silence because they were both reeling from what shouldn’t be new information. Because there was only one conclusion to be drawn from this, and it hurt so much she almost collapsed onto the ground.

_ I’m going to mutate. _

_ I’m going to die. _

They stood silently in the foul-smelling basement for far longer than anybody in their right mind would, Buddy staring into space away from Dustin because she knew that if she looked at her brother she would cry, and she had already cried in front of him once, she had just found out that she had family besides the man who made her sick and now the world was taking that away from her because of her pathetic method of rebellion. It was all her fault, but she didn’t want it to be, she wanted to blame it on someone, anyone but her, because she was supposed to be smart and strong and brave, not a stupid little girl doing drugs because someone told her not to, not a stupid child acting out because she didn’t get her way, this couldn’t be her fate, she was supposed to change the world -

“L-let’s go,” Dustin said, his voice tight.

She only nodded, not trusting her own voice, and handed him the notes. He put them in his pocket, then reached for her hand. She clutched his tight in her own and hurried up the stairs with him, then out into the open air.

“We’ll g-go back east,” Dustin said.

It took hours for the scent of death to leave her nostrils.

Around evening, they reached the list in all its bloody glory. They were treated to an example of scavengers and decomposition when they saw the remains of the man Buddy had killed a few days prior - other men had taken his clothes and possessions, and birds were pecking at his flesh while a coyote, scared of the newcomers, had bolted.

“Gross,” Buddy said, but it was almost a relief to see the natural process of death after the untouched, somewhat preserved bodies of the mutants at the labs.

Dustin pointed. “S-someone upd-dated the list.”

Indeed, Mister Beautiful’s name had been crossed out in blood. Around the slab of concrete, Buddy saw a few scattered bodies, human and mutant alike; a fight must have occurred. Looking at a mutant, it hit her again that she was looking at her future, and she shook her head aggressively.  _ That’s a long ways off,  _ she reminded herself.  _ Brad had been taking that shit for years before he mutated. You’ve got time.  _ But how much time, she didn’t know.

For a moment, she saw Brad in the corner of her eye, but when she looked, he was gone. One of the dead bodies seemed to flicker and she rubbed her eyes aggressively. When she turned in another direction, she saw fresh blood drip down the stones. She blinked a few times and it was gone.

Dread rose in her heart.  _ Hallucinations.  _ It must be a side effect, despite not having taken any Joy since that morning. 

Withdrawal weighed down her bones, made the back of her throat itch, made her jittery and irritable, but she wanted to put off taking another pill for as long as possible. She couldn’t do it forever, and she wanted that burst of strength when she fought, but she’d have to cut back somewhat if she wanted to, well,  _ live. _

She shook herself out of her thoughts and pointed at the list, trying to ignore the flickering illusions around it. “Who’d know that he’s dead?” she asked. Her fists clenched. “Do you think someone’s following us?”

“I h-hope not,” Dustin said. “D-do you want to f-find a place to sleep?”

“Uh-huh.”

They walked a ways past the list and away from the village to find a little hill surrounded by rocks to block out the wind, and Buddy collected sticks while Dustin got out food and water. They lit a fire and sat close to it as the nighttime chill set in.

“I can watch first, if you want,” Buddy said.

“N-no, I’m f-fine, you can sleep first,” said Dustin.

“If you’re sure.”

But as Buddy arranged her things to sleep, curled up in her shawl, and tried to drift off, she couldn’t stop thinking. Her mortality was staring her in the face, screaming in her ears, filling her lungs, and she wanted to cry, but she wouldn’t let herself do it.

“Hey,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound too choked-up. “Could you tell me more about your life before the Flash?”

“Like w-what?” Dustin asked.

“I dunno. Something you and your friends did, or a job you had, anything.” She could feel tears welling in her eyes. “Just say something. Please.”

“W-well….when I was 15, I had my first j-job. I wanted to s-save up for a used c-car once I g-got my d-driver’s license, so I would’ve w-worked anywhere. There was a g-gas station c-close to the h-high school that I’d w-walk to…”

Listening to her brother talk helped her force the tears back down and, eventually, fall asleep.

  
  


“Buddy! B-Buddy, wake up!”

She sat upright with a gasp, her head whipping from side to side, scrabbling for her sword. “What? Wh - oh.” It was just Dustin.

“Are you alright?” he asked, frightened. “You w-were...crying...and s-shouting. W-were you having a n-nightmare?”

“I...maybe,” Buddy said. The pounding in her head began to calm down, and her visions of blood and death and pain faded. “Yeah. I think so. Sorry. I can take over watch now.”

Dustin didn’t say anything as she got up and poked the fire. As he adjusted his things, she picked up the lighter he had used earlier, and she tried to re-light it. She had to toss in a few more branches before it started up again.

“B-besides that...are you okay?” Dustin asked.

She huffed a sour laugh. “No.”

There was a pause before he walked over and hugged her, and she froze for a moment, tears stinging her eyes again, before hugging him back. At least for a few seconds, she could feel safe.

“T-try not to w-worry,” her brother said. “It’s...I’m here.”

“I know,” she said, her voice muffled. “I’ll be fine.”

He released her and she sniffed, wiping her nose, then stood up straight and cracked her back. “Well, go get some sleep,” she said, clearing her throat.

He nodded and went to lay down, and Buddy sat next to the fire, pulled her shawl around her shoulders, and stared into the flames. She couldn’t not think about everything, couldn’t not go over everything that had happened since she had been kidnapped. She argued with herself, over and over and over, until her head hurt.

_ If I knew it all then, would I do it again?  _ she asked herself, looking at her hands. She wanted to say no, wanted to believe that the version of herself from a few weeks ago would have left the pills where she found them, but she didn’t know. When pushed to the brink of anger, fear, and bitterness, even she didn’t know what she might be capable of. Maybe she wouldn’t have cared. Maybe she wouldn’t have looked that far ahead in her own future.

Regardless, the deed was done. And she couldn’t stop now, not with the pangs of withdrawal symptoms, not with her need to kill. Even now, she felt that bloodlust in the tips of her fingers, in every part of her brain, beating in her heart. She wanted to  _ fight.  _ She wanted to kill. She wanted her vengeance, her revenge.

_ Did that come from Joy?  _ she wondered. She hadn’t wanted to kill until recently, and had been disgusted by it when she was younger. The idea of the drug manipulating her mind to that extent made her sick.

_ Maybe that’s why Brad acted the way he did. _

When she was young, she had some good memories of their little family. She vaguely remembered sitting on Brad’s shoulders and him carrying her around the house while she pointed him in different directions. She remembered him teaching her to read and write and do basic math, praising her when she wrote a word right or read a whole sentence or solved a problem. She remembered when he made her first mask so she could go outside, and how he hovered protectively whenever she did, much to her annoyance.

But she remembered his vices too. She remembered a stink that she now knew was alcohol. She remembered finding scattered bottles and pills, her uncles telling her over and over not to take them until it was drummed into her brain. She remembered how he’d get angry at her or ignore her over the smallest things, how he’d dismiss her when she was upset, how he stopped comforting her when she cried, how he stopped apologizing.

She remembered the only time he ever hit her. Consumed with anger when he saw his father, who had been protecting her, he struck her when she tried to defend what she thought was a defenseless old man. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he deserved it. Maybe that anger was justified, as awful as it was.

Maybe it was the Joy. Maybe it took away Brad’s humanity and replaced it with that anger, and then, the violence that took him across the land in his quest to get her back, to lock her away again, in his attempt to protect her. Maybe it took the darkest parts of him and blew them up until they consumed him.

Maybe it would do the same to her. Maybe it already had.

This time Buddy couldn’t hold back her tears, and she felt them on her cheeks, then her chin.

_ I have to be more than this. There has to be more to me than this.  _ But she couldn’t reach it. She couldn’t find it.

No - she could glimpse it in the way she clung to those good memories, the way she still begrudgingly cared about Brad, the way she had come to care about Dustin. She had those feelings. She felt more than just anger and bitterness and hatred.

In the heat of battle, it was okay to let go of her compassion and give in to that anger, because it gave her some of the strength she needed to kill her enemies. And her anger was justified - anyone who wanted to hurt her deserved to die. But outside of battle, she wanted to hold those good things close to her. She had to.

After a very long night, the sun finally peeked over the horizon. Buddy stood up and stretched her legs, did a few exercises, and rifled through her bag for some food and water. They had replenished their rations when they raided Vega Van Dam’s hideout, but considering their little party was made up of a very tall man and a growing teenage girl, they went through it pretty quickly. She frowned and reminded herself to ask Dustin about it when he woke up.

She also uncovered the pistol she had stolen from one of Lardy’s men. She checked the clip to see that it still had four bullets left, enough for an emergency.

As if on cue, she heard a stone clatter, and whipped around, raising the gun and flicking off the safety. “Someone there?” she said, lowering her voice. If anyone approached, they’d see that she was a girl, but she’d kill anyone who got that close anyway. Most likely it was an animal.

“Guess I’ve ruined the surprise,” came a familiar voice, and she bristled, baring her teeth.

“Show yourself,” she said, backing up against a rock wall.  _ Who is that?  _ She’d definitely heard his voice before,  _ but when, and where? _

“If you insist.”

A man stepped out from behind a rock. It was that guy Bolo, who they’d last seen weeks ago. He looked significantly worse for wear, with untreated infected wounds on his arms and his sallow skin grayer than before, and he was holding a rifle. But he wasn’t pointing the gun at her - it was aimed at Dustin, still asleep, but seeming to stir.

“You again?” Buddy asked, aiming her gun at him. “What do you want?”

He had his finger on the trigger. “Lots of things. Right now, little girl, if you don’t point that thing somewhere else, your friend dies.”

She glanced at Dustin, chewing on her lip. Burning with anger, she lowered the pistol. “There. You want magazines?”

“You think any of that shit matters anymore?  _ You  _ are the ultimate currency,” he said, sneering, making her skin crawl. “Drop that gun. I think you’re ready to become a woman.”

Before either of them could do anything, a Joy mutant appeared out of nowhere - the same one who had attacked Bolo’s gang last time - opened its massive mouth, and bit his head clean off. The body wavered, then fell, blood pouring from the gory stump of its neck.

Buddy stood, frozen in terror, staring at the mutant as it leisurely chewed on the head in its jaws, breaking the skull and jawbone with gruesome  _ snaps _ , blood spilling down its distorted face and dripping onto the ground. The cracks of bone woke Dustin up, and he scooted backwards, clearly just as terrified as Buddy.

After a while the mutant swallowed. For a few more terrifying seconds, it stood there, blood spattered across its face, before it reached down with a claw-like hand, grabbed the body, and left. Buddy waited for its footsteps to fade before she sat down with a thump, finally able to breathe again.

Dustin was by her side in an instant. “Are you ok-kay? Wh-what happened? A-are you hurt?” he demanded.

“I’m fine...I’m fine,” said Buddy, taking deep breaths. She turned the safety of the pistol back on. “It was that Bolo guy. He threatened me...said he’d kill you if I didn’t drop my gun, so I dropped it. Was probably gonna rape me...but then that mutant appeared and bit his head off.”

“Y-you shouldn’t’ve -”

“Too bad, I did,” she cut him off brusquely. “I wouldn’t have let you fuckin’  _ die _ . Family sticks together. Why d’you think it just left us here? S’ far as I’ve seen, mutants kill basically whatever they see...why would it leave us alone?”

“I d-don’t know,” Dustin said. “M-maybe it was s-satisfied w-with his body.”

“Well, anyway, I’m glad that got taken care of painlessly,” Buddy said with faux bravado, going back to their bags. She was still shaken, but tried to hide it. “Let’s eat something and head out. Oh, yeah, we’re kinda running out of food, I think we should buy some.”

“Y-yeah, m-maybe w-we should,” Dustin agreed. “I think there’s another n-neutral zone up ahead. W-we can try g-going there.”

“Alright. I think we’re good with water, though,” Buddy said, taking out one of the cans of carbonated water they had stolen. “These are  _ good.  _ Have you tried the orange one?”

“Y-yeah, orange is g-good. But t-tangerine isn’t g-great.”

“Yeah, for sure.”

After eating, they kicked around the remains of the fire and packed up their things. “I’m g-going to g-get a little higher up,” said Dustin, looking around for taller hills. “I’m p-pretty sure I know w-where to go, b-but I want to make sure.”

“Yeah, don’t get us lost again,” said Buddy, elbowing him in the side. “Kidding,” she added.

As they left their camping spot and the blood splatter on the ground, Buddy couldn’t help but pause. The gory moment played in her head again. The bloody decapitation, the mutant eating the head, and how it left them alone.

It had to mean something. There was no way that was normal behavior for a mutant. There must be something different about that one in particular, but Buddy had no idea what it could be.

“Buddy, c-come on!” Dustin called from up ahead.

She shook herself out of it and turned to follow him. There was nothing she could do about it now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 「we're only human. inevitably, we will disappoint you.」


	11. the reflection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone! just wanted to say a big thank you for making this my most popular lisa fic and for giving this so much attention while i was busy!!
> 
> also i'm debating starting up another longer fic after this one's over, and i have a few thoughts, some crossover-ish, some not, so i'd love to know if any of yall are interested in reading even more of my trash

As they had a few times before, Buddy and Dustin began another leg of their quest by staring down the entrance to an old mining tunnel. Buddy had had her mask on since the morning, when they stopped at a shop to replenish their food supply, and now she took it off; Dustin knew this meant she was ready to kill whoever they came across.

“There really are a ton of these,” Buddy commented as Dustin prepared a torch. He had expected the tunnel to this gang to be well lit, and the fact that it wasn’t was a bit disconcerting.

“Y-yes, c-coal mining was a b-big p-part of energy b-before the F-Flash,” Dustin said. “I w-wonder if we’ll ever t-truly have energy ag-gain.”

“Whadd’ya mean by energy?”

“W-well, b-before the F-Flash, and for a l-little while afterwards, we had elect-tricity,” Dustin said. He lit the torch and they entered the tunnel. “That was how w-we could have T-TVs and l-lights and heating.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’d be good to have again. If guys didn’t go so stupid batshit back in the day maybe things wouldn’t be so shitty now,” Buddy said scornfully.

Dustin glanced down at her; she had been jittery all morning and a bit snippier than usual. Some of her aggression had calmed after he had revealed their true relationship, and their discovery the day before had sobered her further. Maybe she had stopped taking Joy, and it was withdrawal that was bothering her. No matter what, his heart went out to her. She was just a child.

“Do you know anything about this dude? Dice Mahone?” Buddy asked. “How the hell d’you pronounce that last name? Ma _hone?_ Maho _ne?”_

“All I know is that h-he d-deals in g-gambling,” Dustin said. “F-for a while, g-gambling was pretty b-big. We’d b-bet on anything a-and everything...food, g-guns, w-water, even t-territory.” He laughed. “I m-met a guy who g-gambled his entire gang away. He lost everything.”

Buddy snorted. “Idiot. Was that all the way out here?”

“No, there w-was gamb-bling everywhere. But one gang b-built their ec-conomy off of it...this is them.”

“So, like, gambling is how they got food, and stuff?”

“Yes. P-people go here all the t-time, even if they aren’t in the g-gang.”

“Then...why aren’t the lanterns on the walls lit?” Buddy asked, gesturing to them.

“I d-don’t know,” Dustin said. It left a bad taste in his mouth, but he couldn’t quite say why.

They exited the tunnel and stepped onto a platform high off the ground. Beneath them, they could see a well-marked path leading towards another area in the distance, which looked like some sort of stronghold higher up in the rocks. There appeared to be a lot of homes built into the overlapping stone mesas, kind of like adobe houses he had seen on TV years ago. Away from the homes and closer to the stronghold were a few cars and trucks. There were some lights on the homes, so people must still be alive, which was both good and bad. It also seemed like they would have to walk past them in order to get to the leader’s stronghold, which was mostly just bad.

“This is gonna be tough,” said Buddy with a scowl. “D’you think there’s anything we can do?”

“N-not sure,” Dustin said.

Buddy knelt down and pressed her ear to the ground. “I think there’s homes underneath us,” she said. “I can hear movement. We’d have to get past them somehow too.”

“M-maybe we can g-get over to M-Mahone by s-saying we’re here d-diplomatically, l-like we’ve d-done before,” Dustin said.

“Yeah, maybe,” Buddy said, and stood up. Her expression changed. “Er, maybe not.” She pointed at the rock wall.

Dustin turned to see that a few posters had been hammered into it. Scrawled on them were chest-up drawings of Buddy, unmasked, and himself. Underneath Buddy’s, someone had written ‘CAPTURE ALIVE’. Under his, they had written ‘KILL ON SIGHT’. He felt a pang of sadness - he had never been a target before.

“What I wanna know is, who knows about us?” Buddy asked, frowning at the posters. “Except for those guys in the pacifist village, we’ve killed everyone we’ve met...well, except the guys we’ve traded with, but we didn’t do anything to piss _them_ off, and I’ve always worn a mask...”

“M-maybe we _are_ b-being followed,” said Dustin with a shudder. He berated himself for not noticing it sooner, if it was true. Maybe he’d been too wrapped up in looking after Buddy.

“Wait, hang on,” said Buddy. “I can think of one person - that Bolo guy. Maybe _he’s_ the one behind this stuff. At least he’s dead now.”

“That’s p-possible,” Dustin said. “S-some people m-may have seen us...kill, too, and n-not interf-fered.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Fuckin’ pricks ruining it for everyone,” Buddy grumbled. “Let’s scout out the area, maybe if we can figure out where people are, we can try to work around them.”

They tentatively headed down a rocky path, walking as quietly as possible. Dustin heard movement too, people walking around in the adobe homes. They spotted doors up ahead, but no windows. _Good._ Maybe they could sneak past without alerting anyone.

Buddy glanced questioningly at Dusin, jerking her head in the direction of the first door, and he nodded. She nodded back and crept forward, goose-stepping around looser stones. They had barely made it past the door when it suddenly opened with a loud _creak_ and they heard a man’s voice. “...get some drinks,” he said. “I’ll be back later.”

They pressed themselves against the wall behind the open door, and Dustin prayed to every possible deity that they would somehow go unseen. His prayers were answered when the man walked in the opposite direction, not looking towards them at all.

“Close the door, asshole!” the home’s other occupant called from behind, but the first man didn’t bother to turn back and close it.

“Quick, hide!” Buddy hissed, gesturing to the next door.

“B-but -”

“No other options!”

She was right, so Dustin wrenched open the door, they hurried inside, and he shut it.

“What the hell? Knock first, dick,” came a voice, and they turned to see a man laying down in a bed, rubbing his eyes. He stared at them. “Wait, who -”

Buddy lunged forward and sliced his neck open before he could make another sound. He fell backward, bleeding profusely, dead.

“Okay,” she said on an exhale. “We got a minute. Can you check outside?”

Dustin opened the door just a crack and peered from side to side. He spotted a few men walking down the path and quickly ducked back inside. “There’s a f-few,” he said.

He turned back to see that Buddy was looting the dead man’s things. “Got some magazines,” she said, holding up a fistful of them. “Uh...oh, neat, another pistol and some ammo. Maybe you should carry this one, I already have one.” She took out the clip of the pistol, then put it back and checked the safety. “Still got five bullets left. Here’s the ammo, too.” She tossed them over to Dustin, who caught it.

“Got some rations...alcohol…” Buddy set the valuables on the floor beside her. “We’re still good on water, right?”

“Yeah.” 

“Good, ‘cause this guy didn’t have any.” She put some things in her bag and gave the rest to Dustin to carry. She crossed the room to inspect another area that was slightly blocked off from the rest and found a trapdoor. “Hey, check this out,” she said, beckoning Dustin over. “Guy’s got two floors. Let’s go down.”

Buddy opened the trapdoor and he followed her down to the next floor, which also had a bed and some storage structure in it, as well as another open trapdoor. Before either of them could speak, they heard new voices come from below them, and hurried away from the ladder.

“...got another 50 from poker. James was so pissed.”

“You seen him lately?” asked another man.

“Uh...no, not for a few days. Why?”

“He owes me some whiskey. I figured he’d come here, but I guess I’ll just go get it from him. You know where he’s at?”

“Yeah, he’s down a ways in one of the other apartments.”

Buddy gestured at the ladder leading down in the next room. “It’s coming from down there,” she whispered, and Dustin nodded. All of the adobe homes must connect from the top to the bottom of the path.

“D’you know where he went when you saw him last?” the second man asked.

“Said he was going to see Mahone. Probably gonna beg for more food.”

The other man snorted. “Pussy. Mahone hasn’t given us shit in ages. Haven’t even seen him. He hasn’t even said anything about the girl. You think he’d place a few bets himself, everyone else is betting on it.”

“Who’s got the claim right now?”

“Ben, he’s down there on the path. Someone’s gonna get him one of these days if he doesn’t watch his back.”

“For sure, I’d be surprised if he’s not dead already. So, you gonna come get James with me?”

“Yeah, why not, I could use some fresh air.”

They heard a door open and shut, then silence.

“We’re good to go, I think,” Buddy whispered, and she began to crawl down the next ladder, but she had barely put her foot down on the next rung when they heard a door open and had to scramble up into the previous room and step a few feet away from the ladder.

They heard a man mumbling and complaining to himself. He opened a drawer, put something in it, then sat on his bed with a _creak._

“Shit,” Buddy muttered. “We’ll have to go out the door. I can’t kill him fast enough.”

“I’ll ch-check,” said Dustin, crossing to the door. He pushed it open and looked from side to side. “All c-clear.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

They headed out the door, again going as quietly as possible. The path winded down the hill and led to the flat ground and to the road that led across to the stronghold. They were almost halfway down when another door opened and Buddy tried the same method as before, opening the closest door and bolting inside, and Dustin pulled it shut.

Unfortunately, this time, the man inside was standing up and holding a big machete. “What the fuck?” He looked between them and his eyes widened. “Holy sh -”

Buddy lashed out with her sword, but he blocked it with his machete. The blades clashed loudly and Dustin grimaced, hoping nobody would pay it any mind. They swung the blades at each other again and Buddy glanced at Dustin, then angled her sword to keep the man’s hands and blade down. Dustin punched him in the side of his head and he fell to the ground with a heavy thud. Buddy stabbed down but missed his heart, catching his lung instead, and he let out a wheezing, bloody cough. She cursed and stabbed again, this time through his throat.

“Hey, quiet down up there!” they heard a shout from below.

Buddy lowered her voice and said, “Sorry.”

“Yeah, you should be. Dick. Close your door.”

Buddy glanced over to see that the trapdoor was open, and she closed it.

“W-we can’t k-keep doing this,” Dustin said. “It’s too r-risky.”

“I know, I know,” Buddy replied, wiping her blade off on the man’s shirt. “We can’t go down, though, there’s a guy there. We have to go out again. _Ugh,_ we have to come back this way too. This sucks.”

“I saw v-vehicles up ahead,” Dustin said. “M-maybe we can s-steal one and d-drive it up to the t-tunnel.”

“Good idea. But we still gotta get down.” Buddy frowned and pressed a hand to her temple. “There’s gotta be a faster way to do this…”

Dustin went over possible options as well. They had already gotten into one fight by ducking into the nearest hovel, and for all they knew, the next person could have a gun. They couldn’t go down to the room beneath them, the person in it would attack them immediately. Going back outside and attacking someone leaving their home could alert anyone else inside it, and anybody else around. There was no obvious solution.

“Hang on,” Buddy said, walking over to a wooden dresser. “Maybe…” She opened a drawer and dug around in it, pulling out a shirt. “Aha! Disguises!”

“D-disguises?”

“Yeah, if I wear a different shawl, and we wear different masks, and you wear different stuff too, they won’t know who we are. Just put your normal stuff in your bag, I will too.”

“ _Are_ there m-masks here?”

Buddy frowned. “Right. Um...lemme dig around some more.”

The dead man did in fact have a few masks, pretty standard ones with openings for the nostrils and nothing below the upper lip, skull-like in shape but not as obvious as their current ones. He had a variety of clothing, too, and Buddy took off her shawl and shoved it in her bag to pull on a green shirt. “Well, it fuckin’ reeks, but it’ll do,” she commented, wrinkling her nose.

Dustin had poorer luck; the dead man wasn’t short, but was certainly shorter than _him,_ and most of the clothes he found probably weren’t going to fit him well. The biggest item of clothing he could find was a jacket that was still definitely too small. He did his best to pull it on and Buddy snorted.

“Okay, l-listen -”

“This is like the one time where it isn’t super convenient that you’re jacked,” she said, grinning.

He gave her a look that she probably couldn’t see; he hadn’t taken off his mask yet. But she seemed to get it, laughing. “Sorry. Just wear it, I’m sure it’s fine. Worst you’ll get is some weird looks. I mean, look at me, this is huge.” The new shirt she wore easily went down to her knees. “Let’s put these masks on.”

Once they wore the new masks, Buddy gave Dustin another once-over, frowning. “What’re you gonna do with your shoulder pad things?” she asked, gesturing at where they sat on the ground.

Dustin picked them up and tied them around his wrists. “They d-double as h-handguards,” he said, miming a few punches.

He could see Buddy’s eye go huge behind her mask. “What?! That’s fucking _awesome!_ That’s so cool! How come you’ve never used them before??” she demanded.

“B-because I t-try not to shed t-too much b-blood,” he said.

Buddy’s confident air faded to discomfort. “Oh. Uh. Right. Sorry.”

He waved it off. “Let’s g-go.”

“Moment of truth,” Buddy said, opening the door. Dustin closed it behind them and they tried to walk normally down the path.

A door opened in front of them and a man stepped out, and Dustin reflexively held out a hand in front of Buddy that he had to quickly pull back to his side. The man glanced over at them but paid them no mind, and ended up walking past them.

As soon as they were far enough ahead, Buddy exhaled loudly and said, “Holy shit, we did it.”

“Yeah. That w-was a g-good idea,” Dustin said, and she straightened up proudly.

They made it down to the flat ground with no other issues, and stopped at the foot of the hill. “So, it’s over there?” Buddy asked, pointing at the large adobe. “That’s the stronghold? Mahone’s in there?”

“M-most l-likely,” Dustin said. “H-hopefully we’ll j-just seem like his m-men r-reporting to him, or s-something.”

“Hopefully,” Buddy agreed.

They took it easy down the path, occasionally exchanging nods of greeting with random men, and made it to the base of the stronghold before long. There were a lot of old banners and signs hung up advertising gambling that seemed not to take place anymore.

“I w-wonder why everything s-stopped,” Dustin said. “D-did something h-happen a while back? I hadn’t h-heard anything…”

“What _could’ve_ happened?” Buddy asked.

“I d-don’t know. Maybe people j-just stopped g-gambling...m-maybe there wasn’t anything to b-bet on.”

Buddy snorted. “Well, you heard those guys back there, some of ‘em are betting on _me.”_

“B-back in the d-day, there’d be p-poker, blackjack, even some p-pool tables,” Dustin said, frowning as he looked between the signs and banners. “There was w-wrestling, too, and other f-forms of f-fighting…”

“Okay, I dunno what any of the first few things you said are, but maybe s’ like you said earlier. They just ran out of stuff to bet with,” Buddy said. “Maybe everybody held onto their mags and guns and land.”

“I g-guess that’s it,” Dustin said, but he still felt doubtful. 

There were steps set into the stone that led to the stronghold, and they steadily headed upward as the sun inched down the sky, sending their shadows stretching long behind them.

When they were about 20 feet away, Dustin paused, frowning. He had expected to hear _something -_ people talking, moving around, at least footsteps. But he heard nothing.

Buddy, a few steps ahead of him, stopped. “You alright?” she asked.

“F-fine,” he said, and caught up with her. “Just...it’s p-pretty quiet.”

“It is,” she said. “Feel like we should’ve heard something by now. ‘Specially ‘cause the door’s open.”

As they got closer, Dustin still didn’t _hear_ anything, but he smelled something.

Buddy clearly did too. She took a big sniff, then said, “It’s blood.”

 _A lot of it,_ Dustin added silently, trepidation rising in his gut. “S-stay close.”

Buddy withdrew her sword. “Yep.”

They walked up the last few steps and Buddy tripped, catching herself just in time. Hissing out swear words, she looked down at her feet and recoiled. She had tripped over an arm.

The siblings looked at each other. _This isn’t good,_ they said, mentally, together.

They reached the open door only to peer into a darkened room. “I’ll l-light a t-torch,” Dustin said, backing up. Once he had one prepared, they re-entered the room, and Dustin raised the torch - it looked like the post-Flash casino he remembered, tables and chairs and a bar, but some furniture was broken, and everything was collecting dust. Nobody had been in this building for a while, it seemed.

But that assumption was countered when he stepped in something. He lowered the torch and raised his foot - it was blood.

Raising the torch again, he saw that the blood had come from a grossly dismembered body. Both of its arms and one of its legs had been messily torn off, and there was a chunk taken out of its side. He waved the torch from side to side and saw more bodies, more limbs, more blood.

He backed up. “B-Buddy -”

“Torch it,” she said. She was standing next to him, blood on her boots as well.

“What?”

“Burn it all. There’s gotta be a mutant here. We have to flush it out,” Buddy said.

“I c-can’t, the m-men down there will see the fire from there,” Dustin said. “And they m-might want to use this b-building.”

Just then, they heard a low moan from somewhere in the room, somewhere not too far ahead of them. There was definitely a mutant sheltering in the room.

“Well, we at least have to get out of here,” Buddy hissed. “We can’t fight that thing in the dark!”

“You’re r-right,” Dustin said. “Hurry, go.”

Once outside, Dustin extinguished the torch, and they pressed themselves against the rock face, far away from the open door. Seconds passed, then at least a minute, and the mutant didn’t come out.

“I’m telling you, we gotta burn it,” Buddy insisted. “The guys down there’ll see it, but when they come running, it’s not like there’s anything they could do about it. I don’t see any water sources around here. If we burn it, _that_ will get the mutant out, and then we can kill it. From the looks of it they’re not even using this place, so who cares about it?”

Dustin had to admit she had a point. “I g-guess that c-could work,” he conceded. “Okay, Buddy, let’s t-try it.”

“ _Thank_ you,” she said. “So...I guess just chuck the torch in there?”

“N-no,” Dustin said. “There’s a b-better w-way.” He took off his pack and pulled out everything he needed - a bottle of alcohol, a strip of fabric, and a lighter. Buddy crouched down and watched with interest. He poured some alcohol on the fabric, then shoved it in the bottleneck. “S-stay out of the w-way,” he told Buddy, who nodded.

He re-entered the casino, lit the fabric, then chucked the bottle and bolted back outside, clapping his hands over his ears. Despite this, he still jumped when the bottle smashed and the room full of old wood burst into flames.

“Holy shit!” Buddy exclaimed. “That was _awesome!_ What _was_ that?” she demanded, tugging on the sleeve of Dustin’s too-small jacket.

“M-molotov cocktail,” he said, backing up further. The fire was growing and he could hear the mutant howling from inside. “D-did you w-watch how I made it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Could you make one?”

“Yeah!” He tossed her the lighter and she ran over to his pack, then took off her own. She took out another bottle of alcohol and a strip of fabric, then poured a bit too much alcohol on the fabric and stuffed it in the bottleneck.

“Can I throw it this time?” she asked, practically vibrating in excitement.

“W-wait,” Dustin said. “Wait for the m-mutant to c-come out.”

He glanced down at the plain. A few people had left their homes and were staring up at the fire, but nobody was coming up the stairs, at least not yet. He knew they didn’t have much time, but hopefully once the mutant came out any questions would be postponed.

“There!” He turned around to see Buddy pointing, and they both watched the mutant exit the flames.

It was a horrific, massive thing, with a shock of neon blue hair on and around its grossly bloated head, its body a shapeless mass of skin, its arms thick and sinewy.

But what stood out the most to Dustin was the stretched, faded tattoo of two dice on what used to be a shoulder.

“Th-that’s him,” he said. “ _T_ _hat’s_ D-Dice Mahone.”

“Shit,” Buddy said. “Well, at least you get to feel less shitty about killing someone! Anyway, _run!”_ She lit the bottle and threw it at the mutant, and both of them sprinted away as it exploded. The mutated Mahone let out another howl as the flames crawled up its skin.

“G-good job,” he said.

“D’you think that’s enough to kill it?” Buddy asked, panting.

“Probably not…”

The mutant, fire consuming its hair and scorching its body, crawled towards them while letting out guttural moans. Dustin raised his fists, the spikes about to make every punch a lot more deadly, and Buddy raised her sword. “G-get up above and b-behind it!” he called to her. “W-we need the h-high ground!”

She nodded and ran up the stairs to the left of the mutant. Dustin ran up on its right, sprinted forward, and punched the mutant hard in the side. Blood spurted from the wounds and he jumped away before he could breathe in any smoke. 

On the mutant’s other side, Buddy dashed in and struck, her sword carving a bloody line down its body. She ran around it a few more times to inspect it, then ran over to Dustin. “I dunno how to kill this fuckin’ thing, I can’t decapitate it, I have _no_ idea where its heart could be, how’re we gonna do this? It’s just a massive lump.”

Dustin paused, watching the mutant as it turned in place, trying to find its attackers. “If w-we can incap-pacitate it, we m-might not have to k-kill it,” he said. “If we t-take off its arms and legs…”

Buddy nodded. “I can do that.” With that, she sprinted forward to its left leg and, with a massive swing, cut deep into it. Dustin grimaced at the remaining bone and flesh that held it in place as the mutant growled and groaned.

Buddy ran forward again to finish the job, but she wasn’t fast enough. The mutant swung a massive arm and smacked her away, sending her falling against the stairs, her sword clattering to the stone a few feet away.

Before the mutant could make another move, Dustin attacked, punching it hard in its side, then dragged his fists down so the spikes on his wrists tore more and more skin. He only yanked them out when the mutant took a swing at him, and he dodged.

“B-Buddy, you okay?” he asked.

She had gotten to her feet and grabbed her sword, and she nodded, but she was staggering. “M’ fine. Distract it, I’ll take off that leg.”

Dustin punched its side again, over and over, putting all of his strength into every blow, and dodged another attack, but only by an inch. A loud _crack_ told him that Buddy had cut off the mutant’s leg, and it stumbled, leaning to one side and groaning. 

Buddy, panting, came to a stop. “I’ll - take off - an arm,” she said. “I just feel…”

But Dustin didn’t have time to reply, as the mutant’s jaws closed only a few inches away from his head and he jumped away, then landed a solid punch to the mutant’s face. The spikes on his fists tore away the side of its mighty mouth, revealing the sharpened teeth inside, blood gushing into its mouth and dripping onto the stairs. He didn’t know how Joy could alter a human’s body the way it did, and it was truly terrifying.

He remembered that this would happen to Buddy.

He remembered that in a few years, this could be her.

He shook it off. He couldn’t think about that now. He couldn’t let sadness overpower him again, the way it had rendered him mute in that stinking basement. He had to fight.

He swung at the mutant’s chin and tore down into its throat, blood spilling from the wound, but he hadn’t hit anything vital, and sprinted a few feet away to reassess. He glanced over to see that Buddy was standing by their bags, gulping down water, and he froze.

_She’s still taking Joy._

He wanted to get mad, wanted to yell at her, chastise her, demand that she stop, beg her to stop, but he couldn’t do anything, because there was still a mutant to kill. He tore his gaze away and ran in a circle around the mutant, then punched some charred patches of flesh on its other side, tearing burnt skin.

Just then, Buddy let out an animalistic shout and sprinted to the mutant’s back, jumped _onto_ its back, dashed up its body, and sliced its right arm off in one swing. She leaped off its back and landed on the ground. “Nice one, huh?” she called over to Dustin. 

He couldn’t respond. He heard the renewed energy in her voice and saw it in her movement, and it made him sick. He rarely felt furious, but it was definitely rage that filled every inch of his body in that moment. 

_Use it._

He channeled that anger into every punch, not even noticing the heat and the smoke.

_How could you do this?_

_Don’t you know what’s going to happen to you?_

_You’re shortening your life every time you take one._

_You’re killing yourself._

_You’re killing me._

“Dusty! Watch it!” Buddy yelled, and he looked up to see the mutant’s giant hand coming for him. Before it could land, Buddy lashed out with her sword, slicing off a chunk of the mutant’s arm. It shrieked in pain but caught Dustin in the head anyway, throwing him to the ground.

Buddy was at his side. “You good? Come on, get up,” she said frantically. “S’ just got its mouth, but _-”_

They both looked up in terror to see the mutant looming above them, its jaws open, its teeth stained with blood from previous kills, ready to strike - 

Suddenly, with a loud _blam,_ there was a hole in the back of its mouth through which they could see the burning casino. Another _blam,_ and half its jaw was gone.

The siblings turned to see a few men had shown up, the foremost of which was holding a large, two-barreled shotgun. “We can take it from here,” he said, reloaded, and fired again.

Dustin and Buddy scrambled out of the way and to their packs. Both were gasping for breath and Dustin’s heart was beating out of his chest. Buddy handed him some water and he drank it through the open lower half of the mask, the jacket stretching taut when he moved his arm up.

“You alright?” Buddy asked.

“S-stupid jacket,” he muttered, and she grinned. “I’m f-fine. Are you?”

“Yeah, yeah, m’ good.” They looked over to see that the men had the mutant under control with various weapons. “We should go, before they ask us any questions,” Buddy said.

As they hurriedly made their way down the stairs, a man stepped in front of them. “Hey! What the hell happened?” he demanded.

Buddy lowered her voice and said, “We saw the mutant, we tried to kill it.”

“By lighting everything on fire?!”

“We did what we had to do,” she snapped.

The man looked up at the mutant. “That must be what’s been killing our guys...for the last few weeks, anyone who’s gone to see Mahone hasn’t come back.” His expression darkened. “I wonder when he turned.”

He looked back at the siblings. “Thanks for your help, I guess. Most of us haven’t fought mutants before. I mean, a few of the guys here became mutants, but none of them were this _big,_ Jesus Christ. Looks like you guys really know what you’re doing…where are you from?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowing.

“Uh, neutral zone,” Buddy said, shifting from foot to foot. “We’re nomads. We’re leaving.”

Her sentence was punctuated by cries of victory, and they all glanced up to see that the mutant had slumped over, definitely dead. Some of the guys clapped each other on the shoulder or clenched their fists together and did a side-hug. One man with a pistol fired a round into the sky.

Dustin felt a sudden rush of guilt for the two men they’d killed earlier. Ultimately, everyone was just living their lives...and he had helped to take one away. They might have participated in this fight and celebrated with their friends when they successfully took down their enemy. Instead, their bodies lay cooling in their homes.

“Looks like that’s taken care of,” the man said. “This is a relief, kinda. I mean, Mahone was fine, but he was no saint...a while back, he shut the casino down. Said we had to look after our own, not let anymore strangers come here to gamble, and rely on other ways to get food and supplies...a real let down, for sure. Maybe now we can put someone better in charge and start up the casino again. Er, after it stops burning.”

He nodded at the siblings. “Thanks, guys. You’re welcome back here anytime.”

 _I doubt it,_ Dustin thought, as Buddy said, “Uh, any way for us to get back to the tunnel in a hurry?”

“Oh, for sure, just take one of the cars at the foot of the hill, the keys are in the ignition for all of ‘em. They don’t fit through the tunnel, just leave it at the top of the apartments. Best of luck.”

Buddy nodded curtly, then glanced back at Dustin before they headed down the stairs.

Once they had made their way down to the plain, Buddy ran over to the cars. “Hm...let’s take that red one,” she said, pointing.

“S-sure.”

As they drove across the plain, Dustin recalled the last time they were in a car. Things had changed so much in a week or so. He was glad for the change in his relationship with his sister, but wasn’t so glad to know what he knew.

Thinking about that reignited his anger, and just as Buddy said brightly, “That went way better than I thought!” he demanded, “H-how can you k-keep t-taking Joy?!”

Buddy jumped in surprise. “I need to for battle,” she said, like it was obvious. 

“B - y-you - it’s _killing_ you!” He was almost panicking, a furious sort of panic. “D-don’t you unders-stand w-what we saw? It’s _g-going to k-kill you!_ You’re g-going to die!”

“You think I don’t fucking know that?” Buddy demanded, bristling. “I know! I know it’s gonna kill me! That’s why I haven’t taken any since we found out! But when I’m in a fight, I need that energy! I _need_ that violence! And I need to shake off the withdrawal for a few minutes so I can fight without completely fucking it up! Got it?!”

Dustin took a few deep breaths. “I...g-got it. I j-just...I d-don’t...want to lose you.” He didn’t realize he was crying until his vision blurred, and he slowed the car down.

Buddy was silent. Eventually, she said, “You won’t. Not for a while. I’m still...kicking, aren’t I?” She let out a short, barking laugh, then sniffed. “Why’d you...have to remind me of that?” she asked, her words caught in her throat.

Dustin couldn’t speak for a bit, until he managed to say, “S-sorry.”

She sniffed again. “S’ okay. M’ sorry too.”

They were quiet until they got up to the top of the apartments and Dustin parked the car, leaving the keys on the front seat. They faced down the tunnel and their posters again as Dustin lit another torch.

“They didn’t get my hair right at all,” Buddy joked, trying to shift the mood, and Dustin laughed, trying to push all of his pain and angst and anger aside. It wouldn’t do any good right now. Buddy didn’t need to be reminded of what she’d done. She knew.

“Looks like it’s almost evening,” Buddy commented, looking up at the darkening sky. “Let’s get back to a neutral zone n’ settle down. Oh, can I take off this fuckin’ shirt now?” she asked, plucking at the oversized green shirt.

“Oh, y-yeah, we c-can take these off.” Once they were in the tunnel, they took off their disguises. Dustin chucked the too-small jacket to the ground with such ferocity that Buddy burst into giggles. She swiftly turned in another direction to pull her shawl over her head when Dustin took one mask off to put the other back on. He didn’t blame her for not wanting to see his face, and he felt a pang of anxiety - he still had to tell her about it.

He hated thinking about it. The screaming metal. The pain, more intense than anything he’d ever felt. A boy he knew and thought was pretty okay, attacking him with more rage than he thought a person could ever feel, taking revenge for something Dustin hadn’t even done. If he let himself think about it for too long, the memories consumed him, filling his ears and eyes and thoughts...

But he knew he had to tell Buddy. She had to know everything he knew. It wasn’t fair to keep secrets from her, especially this one.

“Oi, Dusty, snap outta it.” He shook his head to see that Buddy was ready to go, her face visible again.

The thoughts of his old trauma faded. “Dusty?” he echoed, smiling. It was the second time she’d called him that.

“Uh, yeah. That’s you. We both get ‘-y’ names,” said Buddy, one corner of her mouth turning up, then turning back down. “Unless you don’t like it.”

He put an arm around her and patted her shoulder, making her complain and half-heartedly shove him. “It’s g-good.”

“ _Ugh,_ alright, then.” She smoothed down her shawl. “Also, thanks for letting me throw that...what’s it called?”

“M-molotov cocktail,” he said.

“Yeah, that. That was _so_ cool. Can we do that again?”

“Maybe w-with the next m-mutant, as long as w-we’re not around any s-super f-flammable stuff,” Dustin said.

“Can’t wait! Y’know, I think we could _both_ benefit from getting me one of those really big guns…”

Dustin was still smiling as he half-listened to Buddy try to persuade him into getting her a shotgun. Everything hurt, but at least for now, with his sister by his side acting like the kid she was, he was okay. And he couldn’t really ask for more than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 「i'm afraid, in order to escape this place, you will need to suffer more.」


	12. the struggle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we got a long one yall, put a lil reference to my first lisa fic in here for funsies
> 
> also real fast the theme of intergenerational abuse in these games really fuckin hits me hard sometimes and i get real emo about it. one day ill write an actual essay about them........eventually...............

After a day of rest for the siblings during which they got into a few heated debates on what the best carbonated water flavor was (after arguing between passionfruit and raspberry, Buddy reluctantly agreed that raspberry won) and Dustin taught Buddy how to play cards, Dustin pointed the way to the next man on the list - Sindy Gallows - and they travelled.

“I hope this guy doesn’t put up too much of a fight,” Buddy commented as they walked. She scratched an itch on her neck and rubbed it. At this point, she couldn’t tell if the sensations in her body were due to withdrawal or Joy. Her hallucinations were getting more frequent no matter if she had recently taken the drug or not. She was aggressive regardless, but had more energy after taking Joy. And she preferred energy over being tired.

Sure, she would die, and that fact stung with every pill she swallowed. But Brad had taken Joy for years, she remembered from ages ago, when she was still a child. If he could take it for years and not mutate, so could she.

Paranoia still bothered her, one part of her brain telling her  _ what if it’s different for you? What if it kills you tomorrow? What if it kills you today? What if the thing you become kills your brother? _

Little inevitabilities, adding up over time, and she was forced to crush down her growing despair. But she could do it. She had to.

Dustin stopped suddenly and she ran into him. “Hey, gimme some warning,” she grunted.

“Sorry. We’re here.”

Buddy moved to stand beside him and peered down. “Uh, it’s a pit.”

“Y-yes. This is how to g-get to him.”

“Huh? That’s stupid. It’ll kill us.”

“It’s n-not as d-deep as it seems, and there’s w-water to b-break our fall. Do you w-want me to g-go first?”

“Ugh, no, I can do it,” Buddy said, shaking off her reluctance. “But if I die, you better tell everyone it’s your fault.”

Dustin laughed. “W-will do.”

Buddy took a deep breath and jumped into the pit. The air turned cold, and the light faded to dark, and she couldn’t see her own feet.

Before she could start worrying about how deep the pit was, she landed in water with a  _ splash.  _ She quickly hauled herself onto dry land and shook out her shawl, wrinkling her nose.  _ I definitely should’ve taken this off.  _ But, then again, her backpack was wet too.

Dustin hit the water a few seconds later with a much bigger  _ splash,  _ and Buddy had to jump out of the way of the water. “Come on!” she complained.

“S-sorry,” Dustin said, clambering out of the water. “I’m b-bigger than you.”

“I’ve noticed.”

The narrow tunnel in front of them was lit with lanterns, and the warmth would hopefully dry out their clothes. Buddy shook her head, steeled herself, and headed forward.

“What d’you know about this guy?” she asked.

“N-not much,” Dustin admitted. “The l-last time I was out here, this g-group had a d-different leader. His n-name isn’t...p-promising…”

“For sure. Wonder if he hangs his enemies. Being hung would be such a shitty way to die. So  _ boring.  _ I better go out in a cool way.” Before Buddy could continue with her bravado, she remembered how she  _ would  _ die, and it wasn’t funny anymore. Indeed, her words fell on silence.

Dustin stopped again and held out a hand in front of her. “I h-hear s-something,” he said quietly.

Buddy paused and listened; she could also hear movement up ahead.  _ Dammit.  _ Fighting in a tunnel of this size would be a challenge, especially if they had more than one opponent.

“Maybe we can sneak up on them,” she said under her breath.

“You should p-put your mask on,” said Dustin.

“No point. Remember those signs? Everyone’s out to kill us now. We can’t fake diplomacy anymore.” Buddy withdrew her sword. “Let’s stay quiet.”

They walked slowly through the tunnel until they came to a rope ladder. They crawled down it, then down another. Buddy had just hopped to the ground when they heard another sound. The siblings glanced at each other. “I’ll g-go first,” Dustin said.

He walked a few feet ahead, then rounded a corner. Buddy heard a noise of surprise and immediately sprinted forward, only skidding to a stop when she almost crashed into his outstretched arm.

“What was that?” she asked, tilting her head.

Dustin pointed to some kind of contraption set into the tunnel. It looked like a large green mushroom. “I k-kicked a rock in f-front of me and it t-triggered it.” 

Buddy looked across the tunnel from the contraption to see arrows embedded into the wall. On the ground, lit by the lanterns on the wall, were patches and flecks of blood, as well as the rock Dustin had kicked. Thankfully, there were no bodies. “Yikes. How’re we gonna get past it?”

“I d-don’t think it can f-fire in q-quick succession,” Dustin said. “It m-must be activated by s-stepping on the g-ground right there.”

“Maybe we can just step over it,” Buddy said. With no further hesitation, she took a wide step over the suspicious area. She set her foot down as carefully as possible, but she still heard the  _ swish  _ of an arrow and immediately ducked and rolled out of the way. The arrow hit the rock wall and bounced off.

“That w-was too close,” said Dustin. “You should j-jump over the spot.” He was able to step over it with no issue.

“Being short sucks,” Buddy grumbled. “You think there’s more of those?”

“P-probably.”

And there were. It took a lot of jumps and goose-stepping to make their way through the tunnels. It was further down that they found bodies.

“They’re new,” Dustin said. “There m-must’ve b-been a fight here r-recently.”

“Makes our job a little easier, I guess,” Buddy said, and she kicked over a body. “C’mon, let’s take their stuff...aw, man. Someone’s already done that,” she said, showing Dustin the dead man’s empty pack.

Dustin was looking down at another body. “S-some of them are w-wearing these cloaks...they l-look like the arrow m-machines.”

“Huh, they do. Maybe they put them there. Do you remember if this gang wore these weird outfits?”

“N-no...b-but for all I know, that’s s-something they p-picked up recently.”

They passed more bodies, all of which Buddy inspected, both to check for supplies and make sure they were real. One of them she tried to kick, but her foot passed through it and hit the ground. She blinked a few times and the body wavered and disappeared. 

She turned around and saw Brad again. She recognized that expression on his face - disappointment. She hated the guilt that rose within her. She had nothing to be guilty about. And there was nothing for him to be disappointed about. He couldn’t be. He was  _ dead. _

_ You aren’t real,  _ she told him. The vision faded.

It still stung. It wasn’t like their quests were very different. Dustin had said so himself, days ago, and she had lashed out because it felt too true, because nothing was more painful than being compared to the man who hurt her the most. But she was following in his footsteps more than she had ever thought she would. The drugs, the murder, the anger...

She saw him again a few feet further.  _ You’re just like me,  _ she heard him say, his tone despondent, critical.  _ Why did you become me, Buddy? _

“I’m  _ not  _ you!” she spat, and Dustin jumped.

“Wh-what?” Dustin asked. “Are you okay? Did you hear s-something?”

Buddy squeezed her eyes shut and nodded. “I’m fine. Sorry. I was just...thinking. Sorry.”

“J-just checking,” her brother said.

She looked over at Brad.  _ Prove it,  _ he said. He looked at Dustin for a moment, then disappeared. 

The siblings passed a few more of the arrow contraptions as the tunnel began to slant upward, and were able to dodge them, though one arrow almost nicked Buddy’s shoulder and she cursed at it.

Then, a different sort of noise echoed through the tunnel, but not one they wanted to hear. “Dammit,” Buddy said. “That’s a mutant for sure.”

“At least the t-tunnel’s w-wider now,” Dustin said. “Or we can t-try to get past it.”

“I doubt we could get past it,” Buddy said. She sniffed. “Think there’s more bodies up ahead.” She dropped her pack to take out some water and a Joy pill.

“The m-mutant must have k-killed recently,” Dustin said as she took the pill. “Hopefully it’ll b-be weaker.”

Buddy swallowed and wiped her mouth, counting down the seconds until the drug kicked in. “Yeah. Hopefully.”

They had to climb up a few rope ladders before they came upon the mutant. In life, it had been one of the men who wore the green cloaks. That cloak now drooped, torn and stained with blood, over the mutant’s head and down its distorted back. Its legs were hidden under rolls and lumps of flesh, but its bloody arms hung down from its tall, bloated frame. It turned to look at them and let out a guttural growl without opening its mouth. Around it were more bodies, these ones viciously torn apart.

Joy was humming in Buddy’s veins, and fresh energy filled every muscle. “Let’s do this,” she said. “I got an idea - if I can jump off of you, I can get its neck.”

“Okay, you’ll have to b-be fast,” Dustin said.

“Uh-huh!” Buddy darted forward, Dustin following her. She skidded to a stop a few feet from the mutant, turned, and sprinted towards her brother, who had lowered his fists to the ground. She jumped onto his fists, he pushed her into the air, and she jumped off.

Momentum carried her forward and she stabbed her blade through the mutant’s neck. When she fell backward, she yanked the sword up and out, tearing through its neck and only barely missing cleaving its skull in two. Blood gushed from the wound that would have been fatal on any human. The mutant howled in agony as she clambered to her feet.

“Guessing you won’t let me throw a volotov cocktail in a tunnel,” Buddy said.

“Molotov, and n-no,” Dustin said.

“Another time, then.” She ran forward and struck again, carving a bloody line across what might have been a chest, then avoided a swipe from its right arm. “I’ll distract it, you’re taller, you get its throat!” she called. The vigor and risk of the fight was much-needed, she thought, feeling relieved.  _ I don’t have to think about anything else right now. _

Dustin nodded, and she made a bunch of superficial slashes across the mutant’s body to get it to focus on her. It groaned and leaned towards her. Buddy jumped from foot to foot and stabbed the mutant in the hand when it reached for her, and watched the torn piece of its flesh tilting away, blood still leaking from it.

She wasn’t sure if Dustin had the mental strength to do what she thought was a good but gross idea, considering how much of a softie he was. To her surprise, he did it, he grabbed the piece of flesh and tore it away with a gruesome ripping sound. From her angle, she could only just see the white of the bones in its neck and shoulder, and she felt her stomach turn.

But, she knew this was her chance to kill the mutant, so she forced any sickness down and ran forward as Dustin backed away. She willed herself to look at the grisly cross-section of the mutant for the amount of time it took her to stab it in the throat, but then she raised her head and she looked into its bleeding face and froze.

The mutant was crying. Its eyes, its pupils blown, all life gone, were filled with tears. They streaked down its warped cheeks and onto the gory mess that was its neck.

Buddy’s whole body trembled and suddenly she was so, so aware of the Joy in her veins, of the blue light in her eye, of the pounding of her heart. While she knew she would be crying too if she’d had a whole part of her body torn off, there was something more there, she could tell.

It used to be human. It had been a person. It had been a person like she was a person, and he became a mutant the way she would become a mutant, and maybe after she turned into some horrible towering beast she’d look upon her brother and cry the same tears -

_ “No!”  _ she yelled, and drove her sword into its neck, finally piercing the jugular vein, and pressurized blood splattered her face and arms. Coughing and spitting, she stumbled backward. Dustin caught her before she fell over.

The mutant, its blood pooling around it, slumped over. Panting, Buddy stared at it, at the tears drying on its face, and she felt them in her eyes, too.  _ Not now, not now!  _ she told herself, shaking her head roughly.

Her eyes travelled down from its face to its disfigured upper body. Ages ago, Brad and her uncles had shown her diagrams of the human skeleton and had explained her own bones to her. Her memory wasn’t perfect, but she was pretty sure the neck vertebrae weren’t that long. The clavicle, too, didn’t look right. 

_ This will be me. I’m seeing my future.  _

“You okay?” Dustin asked.

Buddy blinked and rubbed her face, blood smearing on her hands. “Yeah.  _ Ugh.  _ Yuck. Grab me some of those dead guy clothes, will you?” She prayed her voice didn’t betray any emotion besides disgust.

Dustin tore some fabric off of one of the bodies and handed it to her, and she used it to wipe the blood off, then chucked it aside and brought out a water bottle to splash off the rest. As soon as she felt a little less disgusting, she gestured ahead of them. “Okay, let’s keep going. We gotta be almost there, right?”

“I th-think so,” Dustin said.

“What was the last leader like? D’you remember him?” Buddy asked, trotting next to him as they resumed the trek.

“N-not really...I think he was f-fine. In the old d-days, after the v-violence had calmed down, a l-lot of us j-just w-wanted the f-fighting to stop. I th-think he was one of the men who w-wanted as little b-bloodshed as possible.”

“Like you, huh? Well, you’ve always tried to do the right thing, so anybody who acted like you was probably a good leader,” Buddy said very matter-of-factly.

Dustin was quiet for a few seconds. “Th-thank you, Buddy,” he said, sounding surprised and even emotional.

Buddy shrugged. “Just being honest,” she said defensively.

Dustin seemed to hesitate, and she could tell he had something more to say, even with his face covered. “What is it? Spit it out,” she said.

“Okay...h-how would you f-feel if I t-tried to find my old g-gang?”

She frowned, her forehead creasing. The closeness she felt a moment ago faded to caution. “Dunno. Why would you wanna do that? Is it not okay, just the two of us?”

“It’s n-not that,” he said quickly. “I’m...I’m r-really happy to have f-found and m-met you, Buddy. Y-you’re my sister, and I d-don’t want to ab-bandon you, ever. Family s-sticks t-together.”

“Cool,” was all she said, but it was definitely nice to hear, and she felt her shoulders relax.

“I j-just know that there’s s-strength in numbers, and it’s okay to r-rely on p-people. I know about w-what happened to you...but I w-wouldn’t let that happen ever again. If anyone t-tried to t-touch you, I’d k-kill them.” 

She could tell that he meant what he said. He’d proven it, after all, only getting involved in certain fights when she was put in danger. Still, her experiences with his group were too much to forgive. Kidnapping, interrogation, uncomfortable comments, attempted molestation, keeping her prisoner...not exactly scenarios she wanted to be put in again.

“I just - I don’t really trust anyone,” Buddy said. “You get it, right? M’ sure you’ve been stabbed in the back before.”

“Y-yes, I have.”

“So I just...look, no matter where I am, no matter what’s going on, it’s like...I’m always on high alert. I’m always ready to fight, or run, or something. It’s like that fight-or-flight switch got flipped in my brain, and now that’s all there is.” She hoped she didn’t sound as despondent as she felt. “So...I don’t want you to be unhappy, or lonely. But I just don’t think I could trust them.”

“I’m n-not lonely,” Dustin said. “I’ve g-got you.”

One corner of her mouth turned up in a smile. “Yeah. Me too.”

They had come to the exit, light shining into the tunnel, and stopped. “Alright,” Buddy said. “Hopefully we won’t - whoa!”

Her confident stride outside was interrupted by the grim sight of a man’s head impaled on a stick. Easily the worst part of it was that it was somewhat fresh - while the skin was pallid, it wasn’t yet gray, and blood still dripped from the neck.

“Gross,” she said.

Dustin made a sound of agreement. “S-stay on high alert,” he said. “This k-kind of thing is usually a w-warning…”

“Stay close to me, then,” said Buddy. “I’ll protect you.”

“I don’t -”

“Fine, we can protect  _ each other,”  _ she said, rolling her eye. “Because that’s what we do. Just let me be the one to say it for once.”

Dustin laughed. “Okay. B-but you should p-put your mask on.”

“ _ Ugh,  _ fine.”

The territory was quiet as they progressed, only hearing the chirp of birds or the occasional skitter of a rodent or a lizard. They passed more heads on spikes and Buddy grimaced at the expressions frozen on the faces of the dead.  _ What’d they do to deserve this? Just trespassing? Something else? _

Her least favorite by far was the head that got stabbed through the eye, the end of the spike protruding through the eye socket. She stuck her tongue out. “ _ Ew.” _

“K-keep moving,” said Dustin. “S-someone might be w-watching us.”

Buddy glared around, raising her sword as if to threaten any voyeurs. “Well, maybe they know I’ll kill any challenger.”

“If n-not, they w-will soon enough,” Dustin said.

She nodded, tilting her chin up, and kept moving. They passed no bodies, but there were arrows stuck in the ground, bloody weapons tossed aside, and footprints. “How long ago d’you think this fight was?” Buddy asked.

“D-don’t know. N-not too long ago,” Dustin said. “Also...d-did you notice that none of these heads are w-wearing those green cloaks?”

“Huh, you’re right,” said Buddy. “But wouldn’t they have fallen off anyway? Or just not been on the heads in the first place?”

“That’s t-true,” Dustin said. “B-but we haven’t s-seen any more bodies, either.”

“Yeah...maybe they’re unrelated?”

Dustin shrugged. They passed at a severed head that had bled from the eyes and picked up the pace.

Since they hadn’t been bothered, they felt safe enough to take a break to eat and drink after a while, out of the way of the heads. But neither were comfortable staying there for long, so they were moving again soon after.

At last, they heard movement that didn’t belong to animals, and crouched behind a rock. “I’ll t-take a look,” Dustin said quietly, and Buddy nodded. He raised his head slightly above the boulder. “I d-don’t see anything yet…”

“We gotta keep going a ways,” Buddy said, chewing on her lip. “Hang on.” She reached into her pocket, grabbed a Joy pill, and shoved it in her mouth, then nearly choked - she’d grabbed two by accident.  _ Fuck. _

She didn’t want to try vomiting - that would weaken her. There was only one option, and it filled her with dread. Reluctantly, she opened her water bottle and drank, washing both pills down.  _ Please, please, don’t go nuts,  _ she begged her body and mind, then packed her things and followed Dustin.

They darted between rocks as they walked toward the source of the noise. Enemies were finally spotted when they crawled their way to the top of a hill. It was a group of four men, all wearing the green cloaks. In front of them, hung by a noose, was the bloodied body of a man with many, many arrows protruding from his corpse.

“What the hell?” Buddy hissed. As she leaned forward to try and see better, she set her hand down on a loose rock that dislodged and clattered as it fell down the hill.

The four men turned around. Besides the green cloaks, there was nothing abnormal about them. They all carried bows and had quivers of arrows slung over their backs.

“Who are you?” Buddy asked, going on the offensive, trying to act like she and Dustin weren’t trying to be sneaky. Her hand clenched around her sword handle. “Who is  _ that?” _

“Sindy Gallows,” replied one of the men.

Buddy blinked.  _ Guess the green cloak guys  _ aren’t  _ his gang.  _ “Why’d you kill him?”

“He and his gang tried to fight the beasts,” said another man. “He went against the will of God.”

_ God, huh.  _ Buddy didn’t know much about religion, but she definitely didn’t remember learning about  _ that.  _ “What d’you mean?” she asked. “They were killing mutants?”

“The mutants are who we will become,” said the first man. “They are the ultimate form of man...we pray to be lucky enough to ascend to their level. The beasts are our future...they must live on.”

_ Okay, so these guys are just crazy.  _ “What the hell are you going on about? The mutants are  _ mindless _ . They try to  _ kill  _ us.” She could tell the Joy was starting to kick in; every word felt so  _ strong,  _ every syllable hummed in her mouth. Now more than ever, she felt it in every nerve ending, inside of her bones, in every organ, in every breath.

“They are man in his purest form,” said a third man. “God has delivered unto us our salvation. Know this...the world will die to a glorious tune.”

His haunting words reached her and ignited an odd fury inside her.  _ Why do these idiots think  _ becoming a fucking mutant  _ is the answer? It’s supposed to be me! _

Buddy straightened up. “The mutants aren’t your future.  _ I  _ am your future.” She took off her mask and dropped it and her backpack on the ground. The men stepped back, one dropping his bow.

“ _ I  _ am your salvation,” she said, sudden feelings of power filling her chest. She saw their shock, maybe even fear, and she drank it down, and it flooded her body with a glorious pride, almost overwhelming her with its intensity. All of her fears of the burden of her power were gone. In that moment, she was the strongest person alive.

_ I am unique. I am strong. So what if I’ll mutate one day? Until then, I’m me. And I have the whole fucking world in my hands. _

“I am your salvation,” she said again, loving the rumble of power in her voice. “Your God is dead.” With that, she charged forward, Dustin beside her.

An energy she hadn’t felt in days filled her from head to toe. Every slash of her sword, every step, every dodge was fluid, easy, as natural as breathing. She was justice, she was retribution, she was karma, she was a god, and there was nothing she couldn’t do. Each strike was righteous. Each one was the right thing to do.

“Buddy! Buddy.”

She froze, vibrating, her hands clenched so tightly around her sword handle that her knuckles were white. Red hummed at the edge of her vision and she blinked it away, then straightened up and cracked her neck.

Dustin was standing above the mutilated bodies, uninjured. Buddy had shown no mercy. “It’s over,” he said.

“Right,” she said, breathing heavily. “Cool. Good job.” That vivid power was starting to fade, and it was almost embarrassing in retrospect. She mentally cringed at her minutes-ago-self.  _ You’re not a god, dumbass. You’ve just got a sword.  _

“Are you okay?” Dustin asked, hanging back, wary.

She wondered if she did anything weird during the fight. “Yeah. M’ fine.”

She looked up at Sindy Gallows. “Well, guess they did our job for us with this guy. Might as well check out their stronghold, try to get something out of all this.”

They had only taken a few steps beyond the hanged man when they heard him speak. “Hey, kid.”

Buddy stopped. “Huh?”

She backed up to see that Gallows had raised his head. He had blood pouring from the side of his face, more blood dripping out of his nose and mouth, but he was alive. 

Buddy prepared to attack, but Dustin stepped in front of her. “Wait!”

She groaned and lowered her sword. “What is it  _ now?  _ Are you gonna tell me not to kill him either?”

Dustin faced Gallows. “C-can we ask you s-some q-questions?”

Gallows glared at him. “Why? You’re Rando. Thought you had eyes everywhere. Gotta say, you sound a lot weaker than I thought.”

“Shut up,” Buddy said, pointing her sword at him again. “There’s some shit we don’t know.” Dustin had a point; they might as well try to get some information out of him. “First off, why’d these guys try to kill you? They said it was ‘cause you were killing the mutants.”

“That’s right. We were killing them ‘cause they were killing us. That fuckin’ cult, they worship those things. Came after us...got us from a distance. Couldn’t see ‘em coming. They strung me up...but they didn’t kill me. They couldn’t.” Gallows spat some more blood - and a tooth - onto the ground.

“They said the mutants are the ascended forms of humans, or something,” Buddy said. “Why do they think  _ that?” _

“Some people are just looking for...something, anything to worship, little girl.” She bristled but didn’t bother arguing. “But there are no gods...the Flash taught us that.”

“What else do you know about them? The mutants.”

“I know there’s more of ‘em than there used to be. They’re growin’ in numbers...more people are turning.”

“Do you know what makes them turn?”

“Do  _ you? _ ”

Buddy exchanged a look with Dustin. “W-we know,” Dustin said. “It’s Joy.”

“Correct.” Gallows coughed again. “Anyone who takes it mutates. S’ just a matter of time…” He squinted at Buddy and laughed, spitting more blood onto the ground. “Now I see why yer so worried. I can tell from yer eye that you take it. Pretty disappointing, the last girl alive is a drug addict. But don’t be ashamed of it...come close enough and you’d see it in my eyes too. Guess it’s a good thing someone got to me before I could turn into one of those things. Hope the same happens to you.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Buddy snapped, raising her sword again, but his words sent a shiver of guilt and discomfort down her spine. 

“W-wait, Buddy,” said Dustin, holding out his arm. She just grunted. “Do you know how l-long it takes?”

“For what, someone to turn? No idea,” Gallows said. “Now, I gotta few questions for you. What the hell happened out west?”

“My group found B-Buddy,” Dustin said.

“Yeah, yeah, I heard that. But how’d you two end up out here? And why’re you killin’ off all the warlords?”

The siblings glanced at each other again. “How’d you know that?” Buddy asked.

“One of my boys told me the list got a few updates,” Gallows said. “And some traveller told ‘em the girl was on a rampage.”

“What t-traveller?” Dustin asked.

“Dunno. Some guy who said you two’re here. Why’re you out here n’ not out west?”

“All the warlords there are dead,” Buddy said.

“So you came here to finish the job. Listen, girl...you’ve had a little fun. You wanna be on that list, don’t ya? Well, I didn’t get on that list by being a goddamn pussy,” Gallows growled, his voice deep and shot. “I’m number two in the world. You want my spot?” He spat out another clot of blood. “Come and take it, bitch.”

“No problem,” Buddy spat, and with Dustin out of her way, she attacked.

Her first slash was stopped by Gallows kicking her sword out of her hand. When she stopped, startled, he kicked her in the face, and she fell to the ground, swearing.

Dustin was there immediately, his height and strength giving him a much better advantage. As she fumbled for her sword, Buddy watched him grab one of Gallows’ legs, avoid the other, and hit him in the stomach right next to an arrow. Gallows let out a bark of pain.

Buddy, back to her feet with her sword in her hand, ran around to Gallows’ other side, where his leg was out of her way, and grabbed an arrow stuck in his side. She yanked it out, wincing at the sound of tearing flesh, and Gallows jerked his leg out of Dustin’s grip to try to kick her again, but she backed away.

“You gotta rely on Rando to take care of you, huh?” Gallows taunted her. “Couldn’t fight me on your own, could’ja?” He kicked Dustin hard in the shoulder and he stumbled backward, but then wordlessly dodged another kick to hit the arrow hole Buddy had created a moment ago, punctuated by another painful shout.

Buddy bared her teeth in anger and spat, “I could kill you with a hand tied behind my back.”

“Then why don’t you try?”

“Because I’m not an idiot,” she said, and when he aimed to kick her a third time, she stabbed him through the thigh, her blade protruding out the other side. That plus another punch from Dustin that definitely cracked a rib made Gallows curse and take a few deep, rattling breaths.

When Buddy moved in to attack again, Dustin called, “W-watch out! His hands are loose!” and she was able to avoid an attempted punch. With his arm in front of her, she tore an arrow out of it. He swung in her direction, using the noose for momentum, and hit her in the face.

Barely a second later, Dustin had grabbed Gallows’ other arm and roughly yanked it back. With an obscene popping sound, he dislocated his shoulder.

Buddy rubbed her sore cheek as she stood up. “Nice one,” she said. 

Panting in pain, Gallows chuckled and tilted his head to look at Buddy. “Yer cute, kid. But you gotta ways to go. No wonder...you were able to kill all those guys, you got a guard. How strong is someone who...relies on someone else?”

“You were a gang leader,” she retorted. “You relied on your men all the time.”

“They didn’t fight my battles for me.”

Some of her confidence faltered, but she didn’t let it show. “Then you were  _ stupid _ ,” she said. “What’s to gain from suffering when you don’t have to? What do you get? Pride? Who gives a shit about pride? It won’t feed you or give you shelter or win your fights.” She glanced over at Dustin. “It won’t get you where you want to be or get you what you want. Your pride got you  _ here,  _ hanging from a noose,” she sneered.

Gallows coughed. “Sounds like you’re scared,” he taunted. “You worried you couldn’t beat me on your own? You couldn’t...beat a half-dead man? But you managed to get a  _ pacifist  _ to fight your battles for you... _ there’s  _ something to be proud of.”

Buddy saw how Dustin flinched and she snarled, “I didn’t  _ get  _ him to fight for me. Leave him outta this. This is about  _ me.  _ I’m strong. You should be glad I’m showing you mercy.”

Gallows snorted, blood running from his nose. “You’d show me mercy by killing me without any help, but you can’t do that, can you?”

“I - yes, I can!” Buddy snapped. Her head was a whirlwind of emotion. Hatred, rage, anger, doubt, searching for the answer.

“Then kill me...prove me wrong,” Gallows said. He was wheezing with every exhale now, bleeding out, barely keeping his eyes open. 

Buddy hesitated, seconds ticking by as they stared each other down, his blood dripping onto the ground. She spotted a tiny smile flash across his face.

“No,” she said, lowering her sword. “You’re already dead.”

She turned and walked away, leaving Gallows and his last words behind her. There was nothing to prove.

Dustin was worried.

Buddy had been quiet on the way out of Gallows’ territory. The way back had been much longer, which was why he had decided to take the shortcut through the tunnels earlier. Buddy either snapped or grunted at everything he said, and eventually he stopped talking. He wondered if Gallows’ words really got to her, despite her insisting otherwise at the time.

At first he hadn’t understood why she had walked away. He had seen her, full of rage, kill already-dying men before. She had caved in Lardy’s skull before stabbing him through the heart. That image would never leave him.

But this was the first man who had  _ dared  _ her to kill him, had wanted a faster way out than bleeding to death. Killing him wouldn’t have meant anything. It was crueler to let him die, and she was cruel.

They were still on their way back when the sun began to set. They followed their usual routine of collecting sticks and rocks to make a fire, then broke out their food and water. Buddy sat back against her bag and stared into space, her eye glazed over. Dustin glanced over at her and felt a sharp pain in his chest when he saw the blue highlight in her eye. It had gotten bigger, like an extra pupil, almost glowing in the dim light.

He would give anything to save her from her fate. He would kill a hundred men, take a hundred bullets, re-live every horrible experience in his life, if it meant his sister could grow up and be happy and be free. But there was nothing he could do.

“Hey,” Buddy said eventually. “When we go to the next guy…”

“Big Lincoln.”

“Big Lincoln. When we get to him...I’m fighting him on my own.”

Dustin had been afraid she would say something like that. “D-didn’t you j-just say that n-not relying on other p-people was s-stupid?” he pointed out. “You s-said that p-pride didn’t m-matter.”

“It’s not pride!” Buddy retorted. “It’s not that. I just…” She folded her arms and kicked a rock into the fire, sending a burst of sparks into the air. “I need to know that I’m strong. That  _ I’m  _ strong. That I could have gotten here on my own.”

“W-why?”

“Because…!” She faltered and looked at her knees. “I don’t know. I have to prove everyone wrong...I have to challenge everything that anyone has ever said about me. I have to be strong and smart and brave and skilled and not some weak fucking little girl who can’t do anything right!” She clenched her hands into fists.

“Who is ‘anyone’?”

Buddy opened her mouth, then closed it. She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and rested her head there.

“You’re t-trying to prove Brad wrong,” Dustin said. “T-trying to show him he d-didn’t need to have t-treated you the way he did.”

“Brad’s dead,” Buddy snapped.

“B-but you’re holding onto w-what he did to you. Listen, B-Buddy...if there’s anything I’ve l-learned, g-going through my life, it’s that h-holding onto the p-past just m-makes you miserable,” Dustin said. “It d-drags you down...it’s a w-weight you c-can’t shake off. Some p-people’s p-pasts were so hard that they c-can’t let them g-go. I d-don’t think Brad could. B-but if you can sh-shovel yourself out of the shit...and m-make something of yours-self...you should.”

Buddy sat in silence.

“I think y-you can,” Dustin said. “I think we b-both can.”

“Yeah, I agree with you, I just haven’t heard you  _ swear  _ before,” Buddy commented, grinning. “Saying the s-word in front of a teenager?  _ Terrible  _ role model.”

“Shut up,” he said as she cackled.

“Yeah, look,” Buddy said. “You’re right. You’re usually right. I just...it’s hard,” she admitted, wrapping her arms around her legs. “I want to get over it...but I’m so  _ angry.  _ Even without the Joy, or the withdrawal...I’m just so mad, all the time. At everyone.”

“You d-don’t have to g-get over it,” Dustin said, “you just h-have to let g-go of it. Don’t let it c-control you, or...affect how you t-treat the p-people you care about.”

Buddy sighed. “Yeah. I know. Sorry for being a bitch sometimes. When I get angry an’ I’m not in a fight, that anger just kinda goes everywhere. Sorry you have to deal with it.”

“I’m okay,” Dustin said. “We’ll b-be okay. When this is over...l-let’s t-try to be okay.”

“That’s a decent goal,” said Buddy, and she pointed at him. “I’ll hold you to that. ‘Cause that applies to you too, ‘kay?” She glanced away. “I know some shit happened to you that you’re not ready to tell me about yet. And that’s fine. I’m curious...but you got your reasons. And it’s not like how it was with Brad, ‘cause your shit doesn’t have anything to do with me. So it’s okay that you don’t wanna talk about it, and I won’t bug you about it ‘till you’re ready.”

Dustin exhaled. Now was as good a time as ever. “I c-can tell you. I’m r-ready.”

She looked back at him, interested. “You are? You sure? You need some booze in you first?”

He laughed. “N-no, I’m f-fine.” He cleared his throat and, with some reluctance, summoned the memories he had always tried so hard to shove down. “When I was young, w-when I was f-fifteen, I was attacked b-by a boy I knew. He d-did that t-to my f-face.”

Buddy’s eyes widened in shock and her eyebrows furrowed in anger. “What the fuck?” she demanded. “Who does something like that?”

“He w-wanted revenge...but it was B-Brad who wronged him, ap-p-parently. He attacked m-me to t-try to get to him...but B-Brad didn’t c-care about me enough for it to w-work,” Dustin said with more than a little bitterness.

“That’s  _ so  _ fucked up, how could he not  _ care  _ about you? You were his  _ kid,”  _ Buddy spat indignantly, her nose wrinkled in disgust.

“W-we had only known each other f-for about th-three years at that p-point. I hadn’t g-grown up with him the s-same way you did.”

“Not an excuse, but whatever,” she muttered. “Anyway. What happened to the boy? He got punished, right?”

“I d-don’t know,” Dustin said. “We rep-ported the incident. I d-didn’t w-want to know anything that h-happened next.”

“Oh. Well, that was all super fucked up.”

“B-but he s-said s-something when he was...f-fighting me,” Dustin said. “He s-said, ‘Th-this is for Lisa’.”

“Lisa?” Buddy echoed. “Brad said that name in his sleep a few times. He was crying.”

“I th-think she’s a g-girl who d-died.”

“So maybe that was the funeral he went to that you told me about?”

“I th-think so.”

“How did she die?”

“I d-don’t know. The b-boy who was at-tacking me didn’t s-say.”

Buddy shuddered. “That’s nuts.”

“Yeah,” Dustin said. “I d-don’t know if we’ll ever l-learn what r-really happened...b-but we know what’s imp-portant. We know...B-Brad was d-dealing with s-something horrible.”

Buddy crossed her arms again. “So am I just supposed to forgive him now that I know how fucked up his life was?”

“N-no. It’s l-like I s-said...you d-don’t have to g-get over it.”

“Yeah. But I dunno if I can let go of it, either. I just…” She sniffed. “He was supposed to  _ love me.  _ That’s what parents are supposed to do, right? But he couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. Not for you, not for me. Why couldn’t he love us without hurting us?”

Dustin felt tears in his eyes and tried to blink them away. It was a question he’d asked many times over the years. “I d-don’t know. I d-don’t think we’ll ever know. We just...have to m-move on. You don’t have to p-prove yourself to someone who d-doesn’t exist anymore.”

Buddy hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. I know.” She exhaled. “But I still have to kill Big Lincoln on my own. You can be there,” she added before Dustin could object, “but I don’t want you to interfere, even if I get injured. I have to do this on my own. I just have to. Maybe it’s immature or whatever, but I don’t care.”

“Okay,” Dustin said reluctantly. It felt immature, but she was thirteen, after all. “I w-won’t interfere. Unless I th-think he’s g-going to kill you. I w-won’t let that happen. That isn’t n-negotiab-ble,” he added at her outraged look.

She huffed. “Fine. If he’s ‘boutta stab me through the heart, you can punch him in the face or something. But I don’t think he’ll try to kill me unless I have my mask on, and I don’t like fighting while wearing that thing, I dunno how you do it.”

“L-lots of p-practice,” Dustin said. “W-we should sleep if you w-want to get to him tomorrow.”

“We can give it a day or so,” Buddy said. “Y’know, maybe find a little area and hole up for a bit. I’m not nervous,” she said quickly, “I just -”

“I c-could use a b-break,” Dustin said, helping her out. “You know m-me...n-not a fan of all this v-violence.”

“Yeah, I’m thinkin’ of you,” she said, clearly relieved. “‘Cause you’re such a softie, I figured you’d need time to prepare. Right?”

“Exactly,” he said. “Th-thanks, Buddy.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, and gave him a grateful, awkward smile.

Dustin nodded. “You c-can sleep first, if you want,” he said.

“Cool, I will.” She paused, then said, “I’m glad you’re here. Maybe there’s some stuff I couldn’t’ve done without you...and that’s okay.” She scooted over and gave him a hug. “I’m glad you’re my brother.”

Dustin hesitated, then rested a hand on her shoulder. “I’m g-glad too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 「time undoes even the mightiest of creatures.」


	13. the proven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> folks!!!! i am back!!! writing this monster took me 2 months on and off so i really hope you like it!!! it's really fucking long!!!!!

“You aren’t real.”

Buddy swayed on her feet. The list blurred in front of her. She knew that the people around it were dead, but they stood and stared at her - dismayed, disappointed, critical, sad. Brad was  _ dead,  _ so how was he watching her, his body flickering between normal and mutated? How did the blue highlight in his eyes shrink, grow, and disappear? How was he looking at her like she had let him down, betrayed him, like  _ she  _ was the one to cause so much pain -

“You aren’t  _ real!”  _ Buddy shouted, her hands balling into fists. “Fucking leave me alone!  _ Leave me alone!” _

“Buddy!”

She whirled around, her teeth still bared in anger, ready to fight, but her tense shoulders fell when she saw that it was Dustin, standing a ways away from her. 

“Um...are you okay?” he asked. He just sounded scared.

Buddy’s vision blurred again and she bit her lip. “Mhm.” She swallowed. “M’ fine. I just - I’m, uh. I think it’s...withdrawals.” She glanced back - all the bodies, all the living, were still there. All the blood still dripped down the stones. And none of it was real. She knew.

“When you...t-take the p-pills, do the visions go away?” Dustin asked quietly.

She nodded, suddenly feeling very, very ashamed. She hadn’t mentioned the hallucinations. “Yeah.”

Neither of them spoke for a few seconds, but eventually Dustin said, “D-don’t run off like that ag-gain. Please. I was...worried.”

“Right. Sorry. I just - I had to do something.”

They had stopped for the night not far away from the list, and Buddy, restless, had strayed from their campsite not long after sunrise, assuming Dustin would be awake soon. In retrospect, it wasn’t smart, but she had to move. She had to walk, run, fight, do something. She had always been fidgety due to being shut inside her whole life, but now her body shook, her mind turned in circles, and physical movement was a respite, if only a temporary one. Everything felt so wrong. But she had been dealing with withdrawal on and off since she started taking Joy, and she knew it would fade after a while. She just had to get through the worst of it.

But the hallucinations had gotten more vivid, more intense, more painful. And it hurt that Dustin had seen her react to them. She wanted him to be as unaware of them as possible. Despite not seeing his expressions, she could feel his fear and his pain, and she wanted to cry, wanted to apologize, wanted to fall asleep knowing he was watching her and keeping her safe and never wake up, or wake up in a different world where just being  _ alive  _ didn’t hurt so much. It was why she had turned to Joy in the first place - rebellion against a world full of people who wanted to hurt her.

But it was the one person in the world who didn’t want to hurt her who had to deal with the consequences of her actions, and she hated how much it broke her.

“Sorry,” Buddy repeated. “Let’s pack up and get going. How long of a trip is it to Lincoln?”

“It’ll take m-most of the d-day, but we’ll probably get there in the afternoon.”

They had to walk past the list again on their way out, and Buddy tried to stare ahead, keep her eyes away from the people watching her, judging her and her decisions and everything she’d done, bodies of the people she’d killed, all the blood she’d spilled. Thankfully, when they left it behind them, no more hallucinations appeared. Putting her mask on helped with it as well.

The silence was still uncomfortable, so Buddy broke it by asking, “Do you ever think about if stuff was different?”

“What do you mean, ‘stuff’?” Dustin asked.

“Like...if the Flash didn’t happen.”

“Oh. All the t-time,” Dustin said. “I...t-try not to d-dwell on it...it’d hurt too much.”

Buddy chewed on her lip. “What would you wish for, if you could?”

Dustin thought for a while before saying, “I d-don’t have s-specifics, but...a working society, b-but maybe one different than the one that c-came before. Maybe a w-world where p-people could get help...where it was more accessible. Where it was m-more normal to rely on each other.”

“What d’you mean by that?”

“Everything was so...difficult. Life b-being difficult was just...the d-default. It felt like n-nobody was working to make life  _ easier  _ for anyone. Some people took p-pride in succeeding through d-difficulty, which is good, but...shouldn’t it j-just not b-be difficult in the first place?”

“Huh,” Buddy said. “That makes sense, I think. Wouldn’t each person ultimately be better off if things didn’t suck for anybody? I mean, things would be better off  _ now  _ if everyone wasn’t so batshit crazy. If the guys here weren’t so weird about me, I wouldn’t be killing them.” She cracked her neck. “If everything was just  _ fine,  _ lots of people would still be alive.” 

“You’d think most people would g-get that...b-but it felt like I was the only one who d-did. I just wanted things to be better.” Dustin laughed. “If my g-grades had b-been better, I would have t-tried to be a doctor, so I could take care of people.”

“You needed good grades for that?”

“Yeah. I did p-pretty well, but not quite well enough in the right areas. It’s okay. It w-wouldn’t have mattered now. Nobody wants to t-take care of each other now. We were one of the only g-gangs with a medic team, because I just d-didn’t want anyone to die. Sometimes, selfishness is r-rewarded out here,” Dustin said. “B-but other times, w-working together does what an individual can’t. I think we’ve p-proven that.”

Buddy grinned. “Yeah, we have. We’re a good team. And hey, maybe once this is over you can be a medic and you can heal us if we get hurt. It can’t be that hard, right? Someone gets injured, you just wrap it up with something, yeah?”

“Um, m-mostly. There are ways to heal wounds more effectively,” Dustin explained. “You can use antibiotic c-creams on smaller injuries, and st-stitches on bigger ones. Stitches are hard, because you usually have to t-take them out. With broken bones, doctors had to do q-quite a few things, it usually required surgery. Sometimes they had to wield metal onto the person’s b-bone. One of my friends in high school b-broke his arm -”

“Wait, hold up.” Buddy stopped. “I hear something.” She unsheathed her sword and held it out in front of her, crouching just in case. A few silent seconds ticked by before she heard it again, the sound of shoes on gravel. “I know you’re there, come out!” she called. “We’re armed! Dusty, get your pistol out.”

“It’s in my b-bag.”

“You don’t keep it in your pocket?”

“You keep your _gun_ in your _p-pocket -”_

Before they could keep bickering, a man in an odd green costume walked out from behind the rocks, his hands up. “Alright, alright,” he said, sounding weary. “Look, I don’t have any m - wait, are you Rando?” he demanded, pointing at Dustin. “Then - wait, that means -”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m the girl, now make one fucking move and you’re dead,” Buddy snapped. “Take that helmet off.” She gestured at it with her sword.

He did so, and the face behind it was nothing unique, though the bags under his eyes were more significant than some of the other men Buddy had seen. He just looked tired and resigned, not putting up any kind of a fight.

“Happy?” he asked.

“No, not since I was a child. If you’re not armed, why were you hiding?”

“‘Cause it’s safer to stay out of the way,” the stranger said. “I was just coming this way to get water. I live over there.” He gestured at a house in the distance. “Seriously, I swear I don’t care about you being a girl or whatever, I’m just - I’m just trying to live.”

Somewhat reluctantly, Buddy lowered her sword and took off her mask. Dustin put his gun away. “Alright, you look pretty sad, so I’ll believe you. You better not tell anyone we came this way,” she threatened.

“Who would I even tell? People are more and more scattered now. Everyone’s paranoid, two seconds away from murdering anybody else...I almost  _ miss  _ the chaos of a few weeks ago,” the stranger said. “At least there was a  _ purpose  _ to everything for a hot minute.”

Buddy bristled and raised her sword again, saying, “That  _ purpose  _ was to fucking  _ hurt me.  _ But they failed, and now I’m making sure that’ll never happen.”

“So all those rumors are true,” the stranger said. “You  _ are  _ killing the warlords.”

Buddy straightened up and pushed some hair out of her face. “Yeah, I am. What of it?” she challenged.

“Look, I have no stake in any of this,” he said, holding up his hands again. “I’ve never been in a gang. I don’t care about all the political shit. I had friends, and we spent our time together, but they’re all dead now.” He faltered, his whole body drooping. “None of this shit really matters to me. Nothing does anymore. I don’t care what you do.”

“You don’t?”

“No. It doesn’t involve me. There’s no future anymore.”

_ “I _ have a future,” Buddy retorted, ignoring her mortality. “I  _ am _ the future. And when I rule all of this,” she said, gesturing around her, “after I kill all the warlords on that list, everyone will know my true strength, and nobody will ever try to hurt me again.”

“So you want to rule all of Olathe,” the stranger said. “But then what? What would you do with it? Killing the warlords broke up some clans, but others are installing new leaders. Not to mention so many people are turning into mutants...I’ve seen like five in the last few days. You want to ‘rule’ over a bunch of mutants and bodies? Would that make you happy?”

“I - of course I’ll be happy _ ,”  _ Buddy said, forcing down the odd feeling in her throat. “Because I’ll be free. I’ll be in control for once.”

“Free from what?”

“Free from being locked away my whole fucking life, free from anyone who could possibly hurt me or try to control me, free to do whatever the fuck I want!” she spat. “And  _ nobody  _ will get in my way. We’re on our way to get rid of the last warlord on the list. When he’s dead, this land will be mine, and everyone will fear me.” The words felt so strong as she said them, but when they hung in the air, she felt a pang of embarrassment. It sounded so fake, so childish. If she hadn’t killed five warlords in the last few weeks, it wouldn’t sound real.

The stranger paused, then said, “Well, I hope that works out for you. You…” He peered at her. “You really are just a kid, aren’t you? Some sick fucks really tried to touch you?”

“I’m not a fucking kid!” Buddy retorted, her fists clenching. “I’m - I’m  _ thirteen,  _ right, Dusty?” she asked, glancing at him, and he nodded. “Thirteen,” she said, looking back at the stranger.

“Right, whatever. Look...I don’t know if this means anything, but...I’m sorry.”

Buddy blinked and cocked her head. “Huh? What’d you do?”

“I personally didn’t do anything, but...for you to feel this way, things must have been super fucked up for you,” the stranger said. “You’ve got a real twisted view of, like, justice. People must have really hurt you. So I’m sorry that you had to deal with all that, on top of a world that’s so hostile and...well, it is frightening, even if  _ you  _ aren’t scared anymore. I know that Joy does that to you,” he said, gesturing at her eye, and she grimaced. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Buddy.”

“I’m really sorry you had to grow up the way you did, Buddy, and that you have to live in this world now,” the stranger said sincerely. “I hope that you can get what you want and find your peace someday.”

“I  _ will  _ get what I want,” Buddy said firmly. “I’ll kill Big Lincoln and have my name at the top of that list, and then…” She trailed off, not sure how to end it.  _ Then I’ll have my peace? Is that what peace will feel like? Will that be freedom? _

“I’m sure you will,” said the stranger, his eyebrows tilted in pity.

“And, uh...thanks,” Buddy added, going over the stranger’s apology in her head again and again. The sympathy he expressed towards her was almost overwhelming. “I’ll...all that stuff you said is...kinda right.”

The stranger nodded. “Well, good luck. Stay safe. Don’t worry, if I run into anyone I won’t say I saw you. I don’t want anyone going after you either.”

“Good,” Buddy said, still unable to articulate how she really felt.

The stranger walked past them, putting his helmet back on. Buddy stood in silence for a while after he was out of sight.

“B-Buddy? Are you okay?” Dustin asked.

She shook herself out of it. “Yeah. M’ good. It’s just - how’d he know all that?” she asked bleakly.

Before she could protest, Dustin pulled her into a hug. After a moment, she returned it. “He j-just assumed,” Dustin said. “B-based on...how you’re acting.”

“I don’t get it,” Buddy said, her voice muffled by Dustin’s cloak-thing. “He doesn’t know me. Why would he feel bad for me?”

“B-because he c-cares about p-people other than hims-self,” Dustin said. “C-caring...it’s a good thing to be.”

“Yeah. I guess that’s how you were too before we, like, met, and talked,” Buddy said, releasing her brother and stepping away. “It’s...I dunno.” She rubbed her forehead. “I dunno.” She forced down her panicked doubts, her angry internal lecturing, her paranoid speculation about what she would do and who she would be when all of this was over.  _ Focus on now. All that matters is now.  _ “Let’s keep moving.”

They arrived at a tunnel with large wolf heads drawn on each side, with a red curtain dangling over the entrance, in the afternoon. Buddy eyed the drawings and chewed her lip. It was covered in scars at this point.

“So...I gotta ask,” she said. “How tough is this guy?”

“He’s at the t-top of the list for a r-reason,” Dustin said. “When I was at my s-strongest, I d-don’t know if I c-could have b-beaten him.”

“Eesh. Not a good sign.”

“You d-don’t have to do this on your own -”

“Yes, I do,” Buddy cut him off. “I can’t just rely on you for  _ everything.  _ Anyone who beat us would capture me alive, but they’d kill you. I wouldn’t let that happen, but just in case it did...I gotta be able to take care of myself. N’ that means being able to fight off anyone who gets in my way.”

“Okay,” Dustin said, “b-but I’m s-still going to inv-volve myself if you’re in r-real danger.”

“Fine,” Buddy relented, and she gave him a begrudging half-smile. “Thanks.”

He just nodded and entered the tunnel. Buddy tilted her head up as she stretched, and paused - it was Brad again, standing above her, looking at her with his baleful blue eyes and the same disappointment as before. 

“Leave me alone,” she hissed, and followed Dustin into the tunnel.

This tunnel was well lit, with lanterns lodged into the cave walls. “These have b-been r-renewed r-recently,” Dustin said, pointing at one. “This t-tunnel must be occupied.”

Buddy took out her sword. “Good. I’ll get some practice in.” She rolled her shoulders. “Loosen up my muscles a bit.”

The tunnel wound down, getting steep to the point that they had to walk sideways and eventually climb down some ladders, and then tilted up again. They hauled themselves up a rope ladder only to come face to face with a man putting a magazine in his gun. He looked up at the sound of footsteps and his eyes widened. “Oh, sh -”

Taking advantage of his surprise, Buddy attacked, darting ahead and slashing left to right. He jumped back just in time and she only caught his left arm, leaving a bleeding red line there. He dodged a second attack, still fumbling with his gun and cursing at it. Buddy stabbed forward and only just missed his side, but left another superficial slash across his stomach, not deep enough to disembowel.

But then he turned his gun on her and fired a few times, and she only just leaped out of the way, wincing at the sounds. Bullets hit the walls of the cave and bounced off and the man let out a bark of pain as one presumably ricocheted back at him. Buddy felt a flash of fear for Dustin and got to her feet, looking over to him. Thankfully, he was fine, and had taken out his pistol. Buddy clapped her hands over her ears when he fired.

The enemy had been distracted and was unable to dodge the bullet. It hit him in the stomach and he stumbled backwards, clutching both bullet wounds, and coughed out some blood before collapsing.

“Thanks,” Buddy said, a little irritated that Dustin had to help her again.  _ Well, this guy did have a fucking gun. _

Dustin put the safety back on and put the gun back in a holster that Buddy hadn’t noticed before. Buddy’s was in her pocket and she lectured herself for not taking it out immediately, but she took it out to make sure it was loaded.

“So you  _ d-do  _ keep your g-gun in your  _ pocket?”  _ Dustin said reproachfully.

“You took the only holster!”

“I t-took it b-because I thought  _ you  _ had one!”

“Have you ever  _ seen  _ one on me?” Buddy paused. “Wait, let’s check this guy -  _ oh, _ he’s still alive. Hey, can you talk?” she asked, kicking him.

He let out a wheezing, bloody cough in response.

“Do you have a holster that’d fit this?” Buddy asked, pointing at her gun.

After a few beleaguered breaths, the man said, “You aren’t...tough enough...for Lincoln.”

Buddy rolled her eye and reached for his pack, and he grabbed her leg, making her yelp in surprise and point her gun at him. “Get the fuck away from me!” she snarled.

The man drew in another rattled breath. “Joy...won’t...save you.”

Buddy’s face contorted in fury and she cut his neck open with a decisive flick of her sword, then kicked his hand away. “Freak,” she muttered.

The man did not, in fact, have a holster that fit Buddy’s pistol, though she did stuff some rations into her backpack. “C’mon, there’s probably more guards up ahead,” she said. “Must be some kinda test.” She cracked her neck. “Also, uh...unless one of them has a gun, like this guy, you gotta let me fight them myself,” she said to Dustin, glancing up at him.

He nodded. “Okay.”

Up ahead, the next guard was a balding man sitting cross-legged, two swords in sheaths behind his back. He observed them with no alarm or aggression. “We’ve been expecting you,” he said.

He got to his feet and unsheathed his swords. “Are you ready?”

Buddy held up a hand. “Can you gimme a sec?”

“Of course.”

Buddy dropped her pack to the ground, as did Dustin. She took out a pill and a bottle of water, took it, chugged some more water, and put it back in her bag.

Standing up straight again, she rolled her shoulders and gripped her sword. “Alright, let’s do this.”

The enemy moved faster than she was expecting, feinting to the left before striking to the right, and had she not dodged in time he would have caught her shoulder. Buddy’s swing was met by one of his swords, and the sound of the blades echoed off the cave walls. His other sword approached her from the left and she lowered herself further. She noted how he had to bend his shoulder, arm, and upper body down to try to land a hit lower than her head.

She ducked and scooted out of the way, then attempted her tried-and-true trick of slashing open her enemy’s heels. He tried to kick her but missed, but the movement disrupted her attack and she only cut through his pants and his calves. Not missing a beat, he blocked her next attack, then, as before, tried to attack below her head. Buddy angled her head, deliberately positioning his blade at her neck, and he had to yank it away at the last second. As he stumbled back, she ducked and aimed for his stomach only to be blocked by another blade.

Buddy backed up, breathing harshly. The Joy was starting to kick in, thankfully. She eyed her enemy and how he stood, how he held his swords, how he looked at her. He still appeared to be calm.

While she waited to feel the Joy, Buddy asked, “Are you a guard for Big Lincoln?”

“Not a guard,” the enemy replied. “I am a test, as are the other men in these tunnels. The person who defeats all of us has a chance at defeating Lincoln.”

“Has anyone ever done it?” Buddy asked.

“No.”

She wiped some sweat off her face. “Well, someone’s about to.” Her heart furiously pumped blood to every end of her body as she charged forward. She swung, and he blocked her blade with both of his. She tore it away and struck again. The noisy clashes of metal on metal filled the tunnel.

Buddy tried to pay attention to every movement she made, how she blocked and dodged and attacked, trying to drive them into her muscle memory and remember them when she was sober. Her enemy was skilled, but she was small and fast and able to avoid most of his attacks. But then she miscalculated a move, and one sword cut open her side.

She cried out and grit her teeth hard, trying to force it down. It was surprisingly easy to ignore it, and she stepped back into the fight with only a slight throbbing pain reminding her of the injury. Angered, each attack grew faster, more brutal, more violent, until Buddy struck hard enough to knock one of the swords out of her enemy’s hands.

She stood in one place for a moment, breathing harshly, then quickly kicked it out of the way before her enemy could reach for it. He just held his remaining sword in both hands and attacked again. This time  _ her  _ sword was knocked out of her hands and clattered across the ground while she fell over backward, and then the tip of her enemy’s blade hovered in front of her vision. She focused on it, frozen in place, her blood pounding in her head.

She reached out and seized her enemy’s hand, pulling the sword closer to her neck, the end of the blade almost touching her skin. “Kill me, then,” she said. “I’d rather die than belong to you.”

As the enemy hesitated, his hand clutched in her wrist, she grabbed her sword with her spare hand and stabbed him through the chest. Blood spurted from the wound and from his mouth, and Buddy ripped her sword out and kicked him away.

Her enemy dropped his second sword and fell to his knees. Buddy kicked him in the chest, directly on the wound, and he fell onto his back, swearing.

She pressed her boot down harder and pointed her sword down at him, relishing in the role reversal. “That was a good fight,” Buddy said, “but not good enough.”

He looked at her. “You’re cunning, and strong...but...you will need to be more than that.”

She stomped the heel of her boot into the wound and smirked at her enemy’s bark of pain. “I’m more than you could ever be,” she sneered. “See you in hell.”

She went back to pick her bag off the ground, then gestured for Dustin to follow her. They walked past the dying man and down deeper into the tunnels.

“Thanks for staying out of it,” Buddy said, giving her brother a light punch on the arm. “Appreciate it.”

“W-would you r-really have let him kill you?”

Buddy scoffed. “‘Course not! It’s a trick. I’m the future, none of these idiots want me  _ dead,  _ so they’d stop just short of putting my life in danger. If I can get them in a position where they might actually  _ kill  _ me, they can’t do it, so it leaves an opening for me.”

“Is your s-side okay?”

“Huh? Oh, right.” Buddy pushed up her shirt on her left side to inspect the cut. It had bled, but the blood was starting to clot. “I think it’ll be okay. Should probably cover it or something, though. We still got those medical supplies?”

They stopped so Dustin could take some bandages and gauze out of his pack. He also retrieved a bottle of water. “I have to c-clean the b-blood off. This m-might hurt,” he said.

“I’ll be fine, I’ve d -  _ eugh!”  _ Buddy grimaced as Dustin carefully washed as much blood off as he could without reopening the wound. Once it was clean, he put some bandages over it, then used sticky gauze to keep them in place.

“There,” he said. “F-feel okay?”

“Yep,” Buddy said, patting the bandages gently. “You  _ should  _ be a doctor or something. When all this shit is done, you can be a doctor. But you also have to like...I dunno. Keep things under control.”

“Th-thought that was g-gonna be  _ your  _ job.”

“Well...I’ll order people around, you can, like...determine what we should tell them to do,” Buddy decided. “Feel like you’re better than that than me.”

“W-whatever you say,” Dustin said.

They walked for quite a while longer, long enough that Buddy decided to take another Joy pill, before they came upon the third man. He, too, seemed prepared for them. 

“You have come,” he said. “But I’m afraid you’ll come no further.”

“We’ll see about that,” Buddy challenged, holding out her sword. This enemy held no weapons.  _ Good. This’ll be easy. _

She was quickly proven wrong when he dodged her first swing and punched her in the shoulder, nearly sending her sprawling. She caught herself on one hand and pushed herself back up, then lunged forward, aiming to stab through his torso. Instead, he grabbed her by her arm and threw her aside, her blade only leaving a scratch across his chest.

She skidded to a stop, then waited, seeing if her enemy would come to her. He didn’t, just watched her, his hands in loose fists.

“Do not underestimate your enemy,” he said.

“Don’t underestimate me either!” Buddy snarled, and attacked, trying a feint and partially succeeding, barely missing another punch aimed at her shoulder. She tried her heel-cut again, but he kicked her hard in the chest, knocking the wind out of her. She gasped and wheezed for breath as she struggled to her feet. Not wanting to waste a second, she darted back and forth, jumping from foot to foot, then struck, leaving another superficial cut across her enemy’s stomach.

She eyed him as he eyed her, both of them standing apart from each other again.  _ He expects me to aim for his legs and feet because that’s what I can reach. I have to do something unexpected… _

When she ran towards him for a third time, she ducked, waiting for his first swing down towards her chest and shoulders. She dodged, and as his fist missed its target, she stepped on it, then his shoulder, sending him crashing to the ground face-first. But before she could make a mortal wound, he twisted his body and kicked her, knocking her away. She rolled to a stop, then got up; he was still getting off the ground. But when she ran at him with her sword out, he spun around and grabbed her head in his hands. For a moment, they stared at each other, and Buddy’s blood froze, knowing he could easily crush her skull.

But then he seemed to realize that he couldn’t treat her like any other enemy, his grip loosening. In that instant, Buddy stabbed him in the stomach, then tore her sword out diagonally, leaving a great bleeding gash. His hands faltered and he fell over.

Buddy loomed over him, looking at her handiwork. She swore she could see organs inside the gash, which made her equally victorious and nauseous. “You guys keep doing that,” she said. “You keep forgetting you can’t kill me, or you’re all fucked.”

Her enemy wasn’t dead yet. “Not all men...believe in you...you...may find...there are those...willing to...let the future die.”

Her eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

“You...are not...enough...to save them...they believe...we are already dead. But...go forward…” He squinted. “Oh...no...you are nobody’s future,” he said, his face falling.

Buddy bristled and pointed her sword at his neck. “The fuck does that mean?”

The enemy closed his eyes. “The Joy...will kill you. They were right...we are already dead.”

Buddy let out an unintelligible shout of rage and stabbed her enemy in the throat. The light in his eyes faded.

Her heart thudded uncomfortably hard against her rib cage. She remembered Sindy Gallows, his body filled with arrows, bleeding out in front of her. She remembered the first time she saw the blue light in her eye. She looked down at the dead man.

Was there any difference between them?

_ We are already dead. _

_ I am already dead. _

“No,” she said aloud. “I’m very much alive. And I intend to  _ stay that way,”  _ she spat at the corpse.

“W-what’d he say?” Dustin asked from a few feet away. The enemy hadn’t spoken loud enough for him to hear.

Buddy cleared her throat. “Nothing. Just - nothing. C’mon, there can’t be too many more of these guys. You need a break? You hungry?”

Not wanting to eat and drink next to a body, they walked a ways further down the tunnels until they stopped. Buddy tore into some rations and chugged a full can of water that she then chucked across the tunnel. It hit the other side and bounced off.

“You’ve f-fought really well,” Dustin said. “You’re r-really s-strong.”

Buddy straightened up and grinned. “Thanks! Means a lot, coming from you.”

He nodded. “I’ve b-been...tempted...to help, b-but I haven’t.”

“I know. Thank you,” Buddy said sincerely. “I just - it has to be me, you know? You can’t just swoop in and save me at the last second like you do sometimes. Obviously I’m glad that you did, because otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting here, but…”

“You n-need to s-stand on your own t-two legs,” Dustin said. “I unders-stand.”

“Exactly. S’ crazy that we’re almost...done, isn’t it? If all goes well today, I’ll be on that list by sunset.” Buddy thought she saw Brad’s face in the light of the lanterns further down the tunnel. “And then...I’ll be free. Even better, I’ll be  _ in charge. I’ll  _ have some fucking power for once in my life. I won’t have to wear a mask, people will do whatever I say, we can get whatever we want and live however we like,” Buddy said with a mirthless smile, even as she saw visions of blood pooling across the ground, Brad’s glowing blue eyes in the dark. “And if anyone pisses me off or tries to start shit,  _ shk!”  _ She drew her finger across her throat. “Gank ‘em.”

“That’s w-what you want?”

“Yeah. That’ll be the reward for all our hard work. C’mon, we’ve talked about this!” She nudged him. “Don’t tell me you weren’t listening!”

“I m-may have m-missed some of your p-posturing,” Dustin joked.

“You’re so  _ mean!  _ Be careful or I won’t name you Second-Most Ultimate Ruler of the Planet!”

“Okay, who would that b-be instead?”

“Um...our secret extra brother, Rusty,” Buddy said, grinning, and dodged a punch.

“W-well, you can have him and I’ll j-just help our s-secret extra sister, Huddy,” Dustin retorted.

“You’d betray me for  _ that  _ bitch?” Buddy complained, smacking Dustin’s shoulder. “I’ll kick her ass!”

“Okay, l-let’s f-fight them both for d-dominance,” Dustin said.

“Finally, you’ve got a good idea,” Buddy said, and they both laughed. Buddy glanced down the tunnel to see that the hallucinations had faded; Brad and the blood were gone. She felt a little warmer, something much different than Joy glowing in her chest. 

“If you’re r-ready, we should k-keep going,” Dustin said, standing up. “We d-don’t w-want to be around here w-when it g-gets dark.”

“Yep, you’re right,” Buddy said, and she jumped to her feet. “Let’s get goin’.”

Not much further ahead sat another man. Buddy, sick of wasting time and conversations that left her shaken, spared no time, words, or mercy. She felt nothing but Joy, and it kept other thoughts at bay. She let it consume her. Fresh blood coated her sword, and only some came off when she wiped it on the corpse.

“Buddy.”

She looked at her brother. Her rage was fading. “What?” she asked, her voice muffled, as if something were stuffed in her ears.

Dustin pointed down the tunnel. “I th-think this was the last g-guard. He’s up ahead.”

“Good.” Buddy reached into her pocket and her fingers brushed each Joy pill as she counted them.  _ Five.  _ None of the men she had killed had the blue light in their eyes. She would need to kill a Joy mutant or an addict to get more.

_ But after this, you won’t need them,  _ she reminded herself, feeling a rush of relief. The withdrawal would be hard, but she could get through it, and then she wouldn’t have to rely on them anymore. She wouldn’t disappoint her brother anymore.

This thought cheered her, and she bounced from foot to foot. “Alright, move out.”

After a few minutes of walking, they exited the tunnel to the afternoon sky. Crosses made of sticks lashed together with rope littered the earth, some over lumps of dirt, others over solid ground.

Buddy walked over and kicked one. It wobbled, but didn’t fall. “These all dead people?” she asked.

“P-probably,” Dustin said. “It’s different...you d-don’t see a lot of p-people burying their d-dead anymore.” He glanced around, then pointed. “There’s a s-sign over there.”

“Maybe it’ll point to where our guy is,” said Buddy, and she jogged over to the sign, Dustin following her.

She stopped to scan the sign, and read it aloud. “Men should die rather than be slaves to their hubris. We would rather die...than become monsters.” Beneath the text was another drawn-on wolf face.

She opened her mouth, but before she could ask, Dustin said, “Hubris means pride.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

They didn’t say more than that. They didn’t need to. Buddy left the sign behind and Dustin walked beside her. The crosses seemed endless, but eventually they reached the top of a hill and saw a building. The windows were boarded up and the door was missing, but a curtain draped over the entrance.

“I bet that’s him,” Buddy said. She reached for a water bottle and took a Joy pill. “Don’t interfere, remember?” she reminded Dustin.

“I w-won’t let him kill you,” was his reply. “L-let me go first.”

“Fine.”

Buddy let Dustin push his way through the curtain, then followed him. In the dark room, there was another curtain across from them. They paused, both of them waiting for any noise, then entered the next room. It was just as dark, but the scent of blood crept into the air, and they exchanged a look. To the left, a third curtain blocked the doorway.

They pushed their way through the third curtain and stopped; this room seemed to have no other way out. Buddy scanned it and jumped; in the barely-there light, she saw a body laying on the floor, its face covered by one of the creepy masks she had last seen weeks ago. Dried blood stained the floor.

“Fuck,” she said.

They heard the scratch of a match on stone and saw a lantern glow with fire, filling the room with enough light to see. And what they saw was a man.

Maybe due to the wolf head he wore as a mask, maybe due to his body, Big Lincoln towered over even Dustin. Buddy saw no visible skin, every inch of him covered by cloth or fur, and though she couldn’t spot the eyeholes of the mask, she felt him staring at her.

For a few moments, they watched each other in silence. Buddy dropped her things, withdrew her sword, and raised it. He didn’t speak or attack, just waited.

It was up to her. She was the challenger.

Her heart pounded, Joy filling her blood, forming a crimson halo around her vision, burning away the last traces of fear, doubt, anything that might get in the way.

He still did nothing.

She had to prove herself. It was her battle.

Buddy lunged forward, aiming at his chest, but he knocked her aside with an arm. Her sword didn’t cut through the rough fabric of his sleeves, and she stumbled off to the side. She ducked just in time for his fist to miss her head, then slashed, her blade only just slicing through the fabric on his waist, and she saw no blood or skin. He seized her by the back of her shawl, but she lowered her head and he pulled it off without discombobulating her. In the moment where he didn’t see her upper body, she darted forward and plunged her sword into his stomach.

She waited for a burst of blood, but nothing came. When she yanked the sword out, she saw that it, again, had only pierced the fabric. Swearing under her breath, she dodged another fist and tried to think. She couldn’t just brute force her way out of this fight.

_ If I can somehow get some of his clothes off, I could actually hurt him.  _ She eyed the thick coat. It wouldn’t be easy.

She swung her sword, but not to stab. She sliced off a piece of fabric on his side, and it fell to the floor. She hadn’t gotten to skin, but there was certainly less blocking it now. 

He grabbed her by the front of her shirt, lifted her a few inches off the ground, then punched her in the stomach. She stumbled to the ground, gasping for breath. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dustin take a step forward, and willed him not to approach.  _ This is my battle!  _ she tried to tell him through some mental sibling connection.  _ Let me do this on my own. _

Then Lincoln seized her by her hair and she let out a yelp of pain as he dragged her up, then threw her to the ground, landing on her stomach this time, her sword clattering to the ground a foot away.

She rolled over, fumbled for her sword with her right hand, then swung it at his hand when he reached for her again. It got him to retract his hand reflexively, but didn’t hurt him. She barely avoided a punch, then scrambled backward to get to her feet again. Her chest heaved with exertion, but she stood tall.

They stared each other down once again. Her cocky sneers and comebacks from before were gone. There was only the adrenaline pumping through her body and her knowing that he was so much stronger than any enemy she had faced. He hadn’t proved it yet, but somehow she knew he would try to kill her. Her gender wouldn’t save her from this fight.

She moved first again, feinting to the left, then moving right and slicing off another strip of his coat. She swung in the opposite direction, but missed by a fraction of an inch, and she stumbled off to the left. He took this opportunity to punch her in the face, pain exploding in her cheek and jaw as he sent her sprawling. She gasped, tears stinging in her eyes, hoping none of her bones had cracked. To her relief, she could still open and close her jaw.

That relief was quickly dashed when she felt a weight on her, then another jolt of pain as her right arm was yanked onto her back. His hand pinned her down, her throbbing cheek pressed to the cold floor, and she coughed, tasting blood in her mouth.

His hand wrapped around her neck and squeezed. Panic bubbled in her throat as he crushed it, her free hand scrabbling at the ground. She found her sword and grabbed it, but couldn’t do anything, she couldn’t  _ breathe. _

_ Okay, I was wrong,  _ she thought, frustrated, trying to reach Dustin again.  _ Help me. Help me! _

The weight was suddenly lifted off of her, Lincoln’s hand released her neck, and she wheezed, trying to fill her lungs with air, too dizzy to even try to stand. She heard the sounds of a fight behind her and her limbs itched to get up,  _ get up,  _ the Joy was there, even stronger now,  _ get up, fight him, kill him, kill kill kill kill - _

The words echoing in her head with every frantic heartbeat, Buddy’s hand clenched around her sword and she pushed herself to her feet, staggering. Dustin was locked in combat with Lincoln, and she could tell he had met his match for the first time. Dustin fought with a fervor she hadn’t seen before, but neither could land a hit on the other. 

_ Kill, kill, kill.  _ She attacked, trying to slice off more fabric from Lincoln’s stomach, but he blocked her with his arm. This left him vulnerable, and Dustin kicked him hard, finally knocking him backwards.

Buddy looked at her brother and nodded. He seemed to understand, and backed away. 

She smiled for a half-second, then sprinted to Lincoln and struck. Her blade cut off another strip of fabric on the left side of his stomach. He aimed a kick at her, she dodged, then stabbed at the same spot.

Her blade finally, finally pierced his skin, she felt it, and the Joy roared in victory. But Lincoln seemed not to feel it when she ripped out her sword, new blood on the blade and on his coat. He grabbed for her arm, then her shoulder, yanking it hard enough to make her shout, then gripped her neck again. But he didn’t choke her this time, lifting her off the ground instead. Before her body could even register the sensation, he threw her to the floor.

Whatever pain she could have felt was muffled by Joy.  _ You need to get up,  _ it told her.  _ You need to kill him. _

She rolled over, grabbed her sword, and jabbed it straight up, hoping she could catch him, but he was too far away. She let the momentum of the gesture take her to her feet, then forward. Another slash of her sword sliced off the fabric covering the right side of his chest. All she had to do was stab him through the heart, and it would be over.

He wouldn’t let her, dodging each strike, countering with punches and kicks and more grabs for her neck, but she was too fast now, too overjoyed. She tried one of her usual methods, ducking down to slice open his heels, but he wore boots much too sturdy for that. Still, she was able to cut through the fabric covering his legs and slice open his calves. He stumbled.

Her heartbeat raced away in every vein. This was her chance.

She jumped back up, aimed for his heart, and struck, only for something to catch on her shoulder -  _ teeth.  _

She felt her skin split as the wolf teeth dug into her flesh, the feeling so strong it broke through her adrenaline, so strong she almost blacked out. White-hot pain filled her vision and she didn’t hear her unintelligible scream. 

But as the teeth hit the bone of her shoulder blade, her sword sunk into his chest down to the hilt, the blade bursting out the other side.

Many terrible, torturous seconds passed before the great mouth slackened and released her, and she tumbled to the ground, yanking her sword out with a violent gush of blood. Lincoln, the teeth of his mask red with her blood, fell to his knees. Buddy waited, swaying, clutching her shoulder, almost expecting this man, creature, whatever, to defy death.

But he was mortal, just like her, and he fell over, his chest barely moving with his last gasps for air.

She staggered over to him and stared down. She still couldn’t see the eyeholes of his mask, but when she looked into the eyes of the wolf, she swore they were real, swore she saw some intelligence there, some solemn clarity. Maybe it wasn’t a mask after all.

Their light was fading. She listened for his final words, waiting for some message he had for the girl who beat him and took his title and now ruled the land, but he died as he lived - in silence.

“Buddy, you’re hurt,” Dustin said, shocking her out of her reverie.

She shook her head, feeling the pain in her shoulder all over again. “Yep,” she managed to say, quiet and wheezing. “I sure am.”

“Hang on.” She heard him fumbling through his things. “S-sit down.”

She sat down with a thump. All of the injuries she suffered during the battle were hitting her at once. The punch to her cheek, the ache of her twisted arm, her scalp, her stomach, her neck, the oozing holes in her shoulder. On top of that, all of her movement had reopened the wound on her side, and more blood soaked its bandage. As the Joy began to leave her body, she felt only splitting agony, enough to make her close to sleep.

“No, n-no, s-stay awake!” Dustin said, lightly tapping her uninjured cheek, and she shook her head roughly and blinked a few times. “I’ll g-get your shoulder. Oh, um...it’d b-be easier if - but you -”

“Relax,” she grunted, and grimaced in pain as she pulled her shirt off. She wore a modest sports bra underneath, so her only discomfort was from the cold air.

Dustin cleaned off the clotting, drying blood, and Buddy bit her tongue to keep from crying out. She glanced over at the wound, saw each individual tooth mark, and felt her stomach turn.

“They’ll heal,” Dustin said. “D-don’t worry. We’re r-running out of antib-biotic…”

“Can we -  _ ugh -  _ find more?” Buddy asked.

“M-maybe…”

As Dustin worked and the stabbing pain faded to a dull throb, Buddy looked back at the corpse of her enemy, the last true rival she had. Nobody could ever call her weak, not now. Nobody could defeat her. She was invincible, unstoppable, unbreakable.

“Are you okay?” Dustin asked. “Um, b-besides this.” He gestured at her shoulder.

She let out one barking laugh, her throat still sore.  _ Maybe not unbreakable. _ “Yeah. I’m alright. Can we go? Are you done?”

“I th-think so…” Dustin patted the gauze keeping the bandages in place. “T-try moving your arm.”

Buddy shifted her shoulder forward and back, then rolled it and stretched out her arm. “It hurts, but I can move it,” she said.

“G-good,” Dustin said, getting up to gather their things. “The t-teeth d-didn’t get through b-bone, but they were...deep…”

Buddy exhaled. “Yeah. They were.”

She stood up, leaning on Dustin, and glanced back at the body. She felt a brief urge to try to take the mask off, to answer the question burning in the back of her mind. But what did it matter? He was dead.

They walked out into the open air. The scent of blood was gone and Buddy smelled the clean air, the bushes, the baked earth. It was all hers now.

She thought back to the morning, a time before she was the ruler of the land, a time before she was the queen of the world, and the man with the sad eyes who asked if this was what she wanted, if this would make her happy, if this would set her free.

She shivered in the cold evening breeze, no Joy left in her blood to keep her warm. She waited for a rush of pride, victory, happiness, vindication,  _ anything,  _ she reached into her head and grabbed for the emotions she wanted to feel, but she couldn’t find them. She just felt empty.

_ This was everything I wanted. _

_ Aren’t I free? _

_ Why aren’t I happy? _

The siblings began their walk back to the neutral zone. There would be one last edit to the list.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 「this is the new world. and in this world, you can do whatever the fuck you want.」


End file.
